Shine a Light
by Sapphire at Dawn
Summary: Love and reincarnation intertwine history and reality to leave the best friend of Lily Luna Potter confused as to which she desires more. Warning: later chapters feature student/teacher relationship, though that is not the focus.
1. Chapter 1

**_AN: I own nothing you recognise. This story is based on a book I read recently, and I would like to say a huge thank you to Divine_Odyssey who beta'd this for me. thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy, please let me know what you think. Constructive criticism is most welcome. =) Poem at the beginning is part of Maybe by Kirsten Bergh.  
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_Maybe I've loved you_  
_Since before the mountains  
Were hills and ached for the sky..._

I was trembling as I stood in the heart of the tight knit bunch of my fellow students.

To our left was a raised platform with a long table, where I assumed all the teachers sat, all of them staring at us. To the right, were the four long house tables crammed full of students; they too were staring at us, and that was one of the reasons I had tried to hide myself in the very middle of the group.

But there would be no hiding when I was called forward to put that patched hat on.

I stared out at the large body of students to try and find my sisters, Amentia and Aeron. I spotted them sitting at the Ravenclaw and Slytherin tables respectively. Neither of them were looking at me, they were both peering intently at the small stool on which a girl, whose name the Professor had announced as Holly Fawcett, was sitting, the large hat falling about her eyes.

As the hat announced her Ravenclaw, it was Amentia who cheered and clapped along with her classmates.

My stomach lurched in fear. My surname was Flint, and would be called very soon. I glanced at the girls who I had sat with on the train: Clarabelle Maggs, who was a tiny girl with mousey hair, and Regan Rabnott, who was tall and dark. They showed none of the apprehension I myself held.

I firmly gripped my little lucky wishing stone, my favourite childhood toy that I had refused to leave behind, however childish it might seem. As I held it, I wished that I could be with them, even just one would be fine; I just wanted to know _someone_ in my new house.

Suddenly, my name was called.

_Flint, Clariss!_

Shaking more than ever, I pushed my way through the students, who seemed to be packing closer together, and now I wished I had chosen to stand closer to the edge, just so I wouldn't look as ridiculous as I did now.

After a momentous effort, I was free and out on my own, where I suddenly felt exposed as the weight of hundreds of pairs of eyes fell on me. It felt difficult to walk straight, but somehow I managed it and reached out to grab the stool before I sat and waited for the hat to be placed on my head.

The advantage of having two sisters already at Hogwarts presented itself again at this moment as I heard the gentle whisper of the hat's voice in my ear. I did not jump in shock, as some students had already done; thankfully Amentia had told me about the Sorting Ceremony in her very first letter home two years ago.

_Another Flint, I see,_ the hat whispered to me. _Goodness, you're all so different, which is a good thing, I suppose... nothing like a bit of variation. I think you'll do well in GRYFFINDOR!_

I blew a half sigh of relief as the hat shouted that last word to the rest of the hall, and the table on the far right erupted in cheers. But I also felt myself sink slightly; I had been sorted away from my sisters, and the one vein of friendship and protection I could have fallen back on if I was sorted into Slytherin or Ravenclaw, was gone.

I sat down next to a brown haired boy with freckles that I recognised from the trip across the lake, and thankful now that all the eyes were off me, I looked back to my fellow first years. They all looked so funny, I thought, standing there like a bunch of scared rabbits. Though I was still hoping that Clarabelle and Regan would soon come and join me, I was enjoying watching my fellow classmates.

I was surprised that I recognised some of the surnames that were being called out, names like Gamp, Goldstein and Macmillan; they were probably the children of my parent's friends, and my family was so extensive that I wouldn't be shocked to learn that I was related to some of them. Then, one name came up that I definitely did know.

_Potter, Lily!_

I sat up, curious, and tried to peer round the other, taller, students to get a better look at the girl. She looked just as her mother had looked in the many pictures I had seen of her in the _Prophet_... I felt in awe.

I couldn't believe it; a Potter, here at Hogwarts and more to the point she was in my own year!

The Potter's were famous; I had grown up hearing their name, Harry Potter who had defeated You-Know-Who and saved our world from that dark fiend. I looked round in excitement to see if anyone else shared my enthusiasm, but I was shocked to see that most of them looked impassive, almost as if they did not care.

What was wrong with them? This was a _Potter_! The daughter of the famous Harry Potter! Why did they not care? I turned back to the front of the hall, where the small girl with reddish brown hair was walking towards the chair where she settled and held her head high as the hat was put onto her head. The hat had barely touched the surface of her hair when it announced her house.

_Gryffindor!_

I tried hard not to squeal.

After all I had heard and read about Harry Potter, here was his daughter, going to be one of my classmates. I looked around at my fellow housemates... why was nobody more excited about this? Surely they should have been excited to have a Potter sorted into their house.

The girl, Lily, was grinning as she made her way up the aisles and took a seat opposite me. I watched her as she leaned forward and gave someone thumbs up along the table. I followed her gaze and saw a boy with messy black hair return the gesture, along with another boy with russet coloured hair, slightly darker than Lily's. I realised that they must be her brothers.

That was probably why none of the older students was that fussed with Lily's arrival; they had seen it all before. Potter's were old news among them.

But that didn't stop me from being excited, and it was with difficulty that I returned my gaze to the Sorting. It was a blow to me when Clarabelle and Regan, my friends from the train, were both sorted into Ravenclaw. I would have to start again making new friends, friends who would share my dormitory and classes, which was something that scared me when I wasn't surrounded with people I knew and could fall back on. However a strange sensation of butterflies was filling my stomach... perhaps I could be friends with Lily Potter.

Soon, the ceremony was over and the feast had begun. I noticed that us new first years had somehow been clustered in a small group and I was surprised to find that a nice, lively conversation had sprung up between us. _It was easy to talk to them,_ I thought, _as easy as talking to my sisters._

'So,' the brown haired boy, whose name I had learned was Tristan, said. 'Do you know anyone else here?'

'Yeah,' I answered through mouthfuls of potato. 'I've got two sisters here already, though they're in different houses and I got cousins and stuff as well.'

'What about you?' Tristan nodded to Lily across the table, and I felt my stomach threaten to lurch, something that had happened whenever Lily spoke. I had not summoned up the courage to talk to her yet, but I resolved I would try.

'Both my brothers are in Gryffindor,' she said. 'I've got loads of cousins and stuff around too, too many to mention really.'

'Is Harry Potter really your dad?' I blurted out before I could stop myself.

Instantly, I was horrified at what I had said. What kind of question was that? Lily would think I was really weird now! I felt myself going red and mumbled an apology and averted my eyes to the other students around me. To my great relief they were looking with curiosity at Lily to see how she would answer my question. Evidently the same question had been on their minds, but I was the only one foolish enough to actually go ahead and blurt it out. One foolish point to me, then. I looked up to see how Lily had taken the question.

She was regarding me with a strange expression that I couldn't quite read, and then, to my horror, she rolled her eyes and I reeled in my utmost stupidity, wishing that I hadn't asked such a stupid question. She had obviously been asked the same question many times before. But now she was smiling at me in a jokey, friendly way, and I relaxed slightly.

'Yeah,' she said, and I realised that her earlier expression was actually one of pride. 'He is.'

'I'm sorry,' I gabbled, my words tumbling over themselves as I rushed to give her the apology I felt she deserved. 'I didn't mean to offend you! I was just curious, I'm really sorry!'

She laughed. 'That's okay. I'm used to the question. My brothers told me to expect it at first,' she reassured me. I still felt stupid for asking my question, but she seemed to be taking it in her stride.

'Must suck having a famous mum and dad, huh?' Tristan said his voice laced with humour and sympathy but in a way that didn't sound patronising in the least. Lily eyed him a moment before she let out a small musical laugh.

'It does sometimes,' she conceded, her voice thoughtful. 'But it's okay, I can understand it... it's just curiosity right? I mean, I know I would be interested in me if I was someone else. I mean, how often do you come across someone whose parents have saved the wizarding world?'

She smiled proudly again; it was evident that she thought a lot of her father.

'Did he really do all the things they say he did?' I asked. I was slightly timid, but she seemed to be keeping the conversation open. I also sensed that her pride in her father wouldn't mind if we kept asking questions.

'Well, that depends what you've heard,' she said. 'Some stories are true, but loads are just a load of rat droppings.'

'Did he really lead an army of Goblins into Gringotts to take back control of the bank from the Death Eaters?' Tristan asked with wide eyes.

'No!' Lily erupted into peals of laughter. 'No, that's not true. He did go into Gringotts, but it was with only one Goblin, and they were disguised as other people.'

'Why did they go into Gringotts?' we were all staring at her with looks of intense curiosity, thrilled that we were getting inside information on one of the most famous people in our world.

'To steal something that would help to destroy Voldemort.'

'So he really did kill him then?' a small pale blonde girl on Lily's left asked.

'I heard that he killed himself,' the boy sat next Tristan said in a thick Scottish accent. His name, I remembered, was Murray.

'I thought he tried to kill Harry but they both got knocked unconscious and Harry killed him with his mind while they were unconscious!'

The stories were getting wilder and wilder, and Lily seemed to find it all very funny, so at least we were keeping her entertained with our silly ideas. To be honest, some of them were entertaining me they were that ridiculous, and differed so much from the stories I had grown up with. We began to recall the most ridiculous stories we had ever heard about Harry Potter to make ourselves laugh, and the theory that Harry had won the war against Voldemort using a combination of Augreys, bogies and the Furnunculus curse had us collapsing in fits of uncontrollable laughter for several minutes.

'That's the stupidest theory I've ever heard!' Lily exclaimed, wiping tears from her eyes.

'So how did he really kill him?' I asked, calming down slightly. 'Seeing as Voldemort didn't end up with bogies flapping in his face?

Lily gave a snort of laughter before answering. 'They shot spells at the same time, and Voldemort's backfired on himself, and he died. So technically, he did kill himself,' Lily told us.

'That's really boring compared to some of the stories!' a brown haired girl who was a Muggle-born named Olivia Smith said. She had never heard of Harry Potter or any of the things that he had done, which I found remarkable, and had enjoyed being filled in with all the ridiculous stories and theories surrounding him.

'Dad says it's always like that,' Lily told her. 'The stories are always more interesting than the reality.'

'But didn't he do loads of stuff before that?' I asked.

'Yeah, like the TriWizard Tournament! My Dad told me about that!' a sandy haired boy piped up from across the table.

'And didn't he use a magic sword to kill a Basilisk?'

'And he saved the Philosopher's Stone from Voldemort!'

'And drove a flying car to Hogwarts once, instead of getting the train!'

'Yeah, he did all those things,' Lily said, pride shining through every syllable. 'My Aunt and Uncle helped him, though, it wasn't just him.'

'Is that Ron and Hermione Weasley?' I asked. They were a married couple, almost as famous as Harry himself.

'Yeah, that's right. Uncle Ron and Auntie Hermione were his best friends.'

'Wow.'

We blew a collective sigh of admiration, and it seemed that the subject of Lily's famous relatives was nearly exhausted. As if on cue, the puddings arrived, and there was a lull in conversation as we dived for what looked the most appealing. After a while, a small babble of talk broke about what magic we were most looking forward to, and I found myself talking more and more to Lily. She was very nice, if rather playful, which explained the eye roll she had given me earlier, though she seemed to have forgotten the incident, and it was with her that I walked with up to our new dormitory. We were rather full and sluggish then, so the conversation wasn't lively as it had been earlier.

'I can't wait for my bed,' she said, yawning widely. 'The house elves warm the sheets for you.'

'I know,' I said grinning at the thought. 'My sister told me.'

'Oh, yeah, I forgot you have sisters here. I think it's very handy, the fact that we sort of know what's coming,' she said. 'I wouldn't like to come here not knowing about anything.'

'Mmm,' I mumbled in agreement. We had reached the entrance to the Gryffindor common rooms and dormitories, which was covered with a painting of a very fat yet elegant looking lady. This was something that I didn't know anything about, however, with my sister's being in different houses. My parent's too had been Ravenclaw's, so I knew little about the space concealed within. I was almost too sleepy to take in the grandeur of the room; the red and gold wall hangings and tapestries, the tables and chair grouped in the corners, the sofas and armchairs clustered around the roaring fire; it all seemed very comfortable and homely.

Our first year dormitory was at the top of a set of spiral stairs. It was a circular room with five four poster beds and our trunks at the foot of each. I extracted my pyjamas from my trunk and clambered into my bed. It was, as Lily had guessed, warm, and incredibly comfortable. I bade everyone goodnight, and drew the hangings around my bed. The pillow was stuffed full of feathers and my head sank into it like a cloud. My eyelids drooped as I thought I heard Lily asking me something about treacle tart, but it could have been my imagination.

She was very nice, I had decided. Perhaps we could go on to be great friends.


	2. Chapter 2

**_So second chapter, I've got so many ideas for this fic. Hope you like it, please review!_**

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Six years later, I was sat in exactly the same the same seat, surrounded by the usual start of term chatter that preceded the end of the start of term feast. I was seated next to the very students that I had sat with on my very first day, and whom over the years, had become some of my best friends.

'So come on Flint, tell us what you got in your OWLs,' the still brown haired Tristan said as he dolloped a third helping of ice cream onto his plate .

'Tris,' I sighed in exasperation. 'I told you when you asked in the summer!'

'Yeah, well I forgot,' he admitted sheepishly. 'And I thought other people should know too. It's nice to share,' he added with a grin.

I gave him a withering look before reeling off my results to the rest of my friends.

'Two 'O's, three 'E's and four 'A's'

'Ooh, well done, Clariss!' my roommate, Olivia Smith, said earnestly. 'I only got one, so you beat me.'

'Yeah, well Lily beat me,' I said, gesturing to my best friend, who was sitting happily next to her sandy haired boyfriend, Conor Finnegan.

'But Frank beat me,' Lily said, waving her hand modestly.

'I think Frank beat everyone,' Tristan said to general laughter. 'Go on, Frankie, deliver the blow!'

'Eight O's, the rest were E's,' Frank said, raising an appreciative hand above his head. Frank Longbottom, who was one of the smartest student's in our year, had achieved twelve OWLs.

'Smart arse,' a tall Scottish boy called Murray Lochrin, grumbled jokingly.

'So what subjects is everyone doing this year?' I asked. For me, choosing subjects to carry on to my sixth year was not an easy task. I had done well in my favourite subject of Divination, gaining a top grade in the subject and was gladly carrying it on, but that was where the easy decisions stopped. My other Outstanding grade was achieved in Ancient Runes, but I did not enjoy that as much as ones I gained lower grades in, and an argument with my parents ensued. Eventually, grumbling a lot, I agreed to carry the subject on, accepting grudgingly the argument that my parent persisted with; the fact that I could use Ancient Runes in careers if I chose to go abroad, like my oldest sister, Amentia, had recently done. The other subjects I had chosen to continue with were Charms, Defence Against the Dark Arts and Transfiguration.

I was instantly bombarded with a stream of subjects as everyone reeled off their choices. It was hard to distinguish who was doing what, but I established that I would have the company of at least one of my friends in every lesson, except Divination.

'I'm only doing four,' pale, blonde Ceres Ruffordd said after the general clamour had subsided. 'I don't think I could cope with anymore. From what Gethan said, this year's gonna be hard. I don't know how you're doing six, Frank.' Gethan was Ceres's older brother. He was the same age as my eldest sister, Amentia, who had left in the summer.

'I think he's meddling with time,' Murray said jokingly.

Beside me, Lily gave a snort of amusement, and I turned to exchange a look at her. We both knew the story of her Aunt Hermione who had indeed meddled with time to get to all her lessons one year. However, we didn't have time to explain the reason for our giggles, as the Headmistress, Professor Vector, chose that moment to get up and draw the feast to a close.

'Well now,' she said, clearing her throat. 'I think that we should say thank you to the kitchens for that truly delicious feast.'

Following her lead, the hall broke into a round of applause.

'And now I would like to give out some start of term notices. I would like to stress to our new students and to remind some of our older ones that the Forbidden Forest remains strictly forbidden. To everyone.'

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the boys exchange smirks, and my mind was drawn to an incident the previous year during a Care of Magical Creatures lesson that involved escaped Bowtruckles who needed to be recaptured from a particularly terrifying part of the forest. As we had all ended up with detention, I did not really like to dwell on this event.

'Also, anyone who would like to play for their House Quidditch teams should submit their names to their House Quidditch Captain by the end of the next week so that tryouts can begin.' I glanced down the table at Murray, who had written to me over the summer to boast about being made Quidditch Captain. Sure enough, a look of superior triumph was plastered on his face and he thrust his chest out to make the shiny badge on his chest stand out more prominently.

'Lastly,' Professor Vector continued, 'I am delighted to announce that we have a new Divination teacher, Professor Anastasia Sye.'

I was slightly taken aback as she indicated towards a slender looking witch with a long mane of silvery hair and a kind and mystical face, sitting to her right. I would have guessed that she was tall, but there was no way to confirm that when she was sat down. There was a scattered applause for the new Professor, who smiled genially at the students before her.

'I didn't know Professor Patil was leaving!' I hissed at my friends in the cover of the noise welcoming Professor Sye.

'Neither did I,' Lily replied. 'But to be honest, I don't care that much.'

I poked my tongue out at her; Lily's disdain for the subject was famous among the Gryffindors, bred from her father's rants about how useless it was, and the fraud of a teacher he'd had to endure. Though to be honest, I think I might feel the same if my teacher was like the one he'd had.

'Apparently she left to get married,' the only other Gryffindor who had chosen to do Divination with me for the last three years, Amelia Creevey, told us.

Satisfied with this point, I turned back to the Headmistress, trying to stifle a large yawn rather unsuccessfully. All the delicious food had made me feel rather lethargic and clumsy, and I was impatient to get to bed. Distantly, I heard the scrape of benches being pulled back, and I knew we had been dismissed. Shaking my head to clear the strange ringing in my ears, undoubtedly brought on by the fuzzy feeling of lethargy, I stood up and turned to my friends. However, they weren't there... nobody I recognised was.

This wasn't the Hogwarts I knew; there were large banners hanging over the tables, the kind that were only used at the end of year feast. I was certain they had not been there before. Neither, I knew, were the large candelabras floating over the tables in place of the usual solitary sticks of wax that floated overhead.

I was standing next to a girl wearing a long and old fashioned lacy dress robe, her long hair plaited in an elaborate braid down her back. Infact, all the girls were wearing those odd styled robes, and the boys were sporting very strange collars beneath their black robes...

I looked to the High Table to see none of the teachers I recognised, but my eyes were drawn to a figure who was standing haughtily beside the table, his dark eyes cast downwards, this was the man the Headmaster had introduced as the new Potions Master. As I stared, I saw his head flick up, and he looked straight at me, causing my heart to beat wildly, as if some caged bird was struggling for freedom. I felt myself redden and averted my eyes...

'Clariss?' I heard my name echoing inside my head, as if someone was calling me from a distance.

'Clariss?' they repeated it, and blinked a few times, before feeling a strange hand on my arm.

I gave a start and jerked myself as I tried to focus my eyes on Lily with some difficulty. She and Tristan were peering at me in concern. Tristan had hold of my elbow, as if he was scared I was going to fall.

'Are you okay?' he asked cautiously.

'I'm – I'm fine,' I stammered. What just happened? Did I just See something?

'Are you sure?' Lily asked. 'You've gone very pale, Clariss.'

'I just stood up a bit fast, that's all,' I assured them, my heart still beating very fast, as fast as it had when I looked into the eyes of the new Professor. I looked quickly back to the table where I had seen him only moments ago, but he was not there. 'Honestly, I'm fine!' I added as neither looked very convinced.

'If you say so,' Tristan reluctantly let go of my elbow, but I noticed that he still kept one eye on me as he moved away.

'Hey, little sister,' a voice behind me made jump out of my skin. 'You're blocking the way.'

Lily and I turned to find Albus, her older brother, grinning down at us. 'Did I make you jump, Clariss?'

'Just a bit,' I said, wondering just how many times I was going to be startled out of my skin tonight.

There was a cough from behind him, and I glanced over his shoulder to see a gaggle of his friends standing there. It was with a pleasant lurch of the stomach that I saw the rather dashing Hero Van Millen.

'Sorry, Al,' Lily grinned, and they moved off together, gossiping about something that Lily's mum had told her about one of their cousins, leaving me to follow them and freely dwell on what had happened back in the Great Hall. I had evidently had some sort of vision, I thought, but it was unlike anything I had experienced before. Yes, I was good at Divination, but for the most part I believed that the subject was mainly based on interpreting signs that prevented themselves to me when I concentrated, but I had never had what my old Professor called 'an episode of the Sight.'

I was still dwelling on what had happened when I climbed between the warm sheets of my bed.

'So,' Lily said as she climbed into her bed. 'What exactly happened back in the Great Hall? You looked like you'd seen a ghost!'

I paused before confiding in Lily, did I really want to share the fact that I might be going mad? I knew her disdain and sceptical views on things like this. But she was my best friend, we told each other everything. I remembered how she confided in me about her feelings for Conor last year, and I prided myself on being the one that brought them together. So, taking a deep breath, I began to explain.

'I think I had some sort of vision,' I said unsteadily.

'What, an 'episode of the Sight'?' she said dramatically, impersonating Professor Patil.

I ignored her teasing, for me, this was a serious matter.

'No, well I don't know,' I said. 'It was definitely real, Lily. One second I was sitting there with you and Ceres and Tristan and everyone, listening to Professor Charlus, and then I stood up, and I was like, in a different place. Well, no, the same place, I mean I was definitely in Hogwarts, but it was a different Hogwarts, y'know? A different time. All the uniforms were different, the boys had these weird collars under their robes, and the girls had all these lace gowns on. It was definitely not _now_, if you get me.'

'I'm not sure I do...' she said uncertainly. 'You think you went back in time?'

'Well not exactly back in time,' I told her, confusing myself further. 'I think I had a flashback.'

'That's a bit odd, isn't it?' Lily said. 'Aren't visions supposed to show the future?'

'Usually I think they do, but they can probably show the past as well,' I replied. 'Well, whatever it was, it was definitely weird, and I'm not sure I liked it.'

'Let's hope it doesn't happen again, then,' Lily said.

'Yeah, let's hope,' I agreed, setting my head on the pillow. 'I think I need some sleep now. Night, Lils.'

'Night.'

I turned over and wriggled more comfortably into my pillow. My mind was still turning over my strange glimpse into the past. Slowly, I began to slip into an uneasy sleep, in which girls in lace dresses and floating candelabras dogged my dreams.


	3. Chapter 3

_**This chapter has been re-written! Please leave a review. I'll come bearing cookies?  
**_

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The next day, I was awoken by Lily bustling round our circular dormitory, getting herself ready for the day ahead.

'Come on, lazy bones!' she sang in an annoyingly happy voice.

'S'morning already?' I mumbled blearily, struggling to open my heavy eyelids as Lily threw open my hangings, blinding my tired eyes with the golden sunlight that streamed through the window opposite.

'It is indeed,' she replied. 'Come on, or else we'll be late. Olivia and Amelia have gone down already, with Michael and Frank I expect. Ceres is in the common room with the boys. Come on, _get up_!'

She pulled back my sheets and I cursed the fact that she could be so bright and bubbly in the mornings, whereas I struggled to even pull back my covers.

'I'm up, I'm up!' I said as I fought my way out of the tangle that my bed sheets had become. Lily seemed to be channelling my mother's spirit, I thought ruefully.

'Merlin, you look pale,' Lily said, peering closely at me. 'Are you alright?'

'Yeah, I'm fine,' I replied as I pulled my new robes out of my trunk. 'Well, to be honest, I didn't get much sleep.'

'The vision thing?'

'Yeah.' Lily had guessed it in one.

'Hmm. I'm sure it's nothing to worry about. It's probably because you were feeling a bit full and heady,' she said. 'Or maybe there was something wrong with the pumpkin juice, I thought it tasted funny.'

I let out a small chuckle as I pulled my hair into a rough pony tail.

'Well, let's hope I have no more funny visions today,' I said.

'Yeah,' she said as we descended the steps down to the common room. 'If you do, you can use the free periods to recover!'

'Ooh, yes,' I replied smiling broadly, my mood brightening at once. 'I'd forgotten about them!'

My mood soared as I thought lazily about the time I would be able to spend stretched out in a comfy armchair in the common room.

'What have you forgotten this time?' Ceres asked, interrupting my daydreams as we descended the final steps. She was perched on the back of the sofa near the fire, chatting to the boys.

'That we have free periods this year,' I told her, smiling happily.

'Yeah, won't it be brilliant?' Murray smiled. 'Whole hours to do absolutely nothing. It'll be great.'

'Today maybe,' Ceres said with a warning tone in her voice as she ushered us out of the portrait hole. 'But I reckon after that we'll need them for work.'

'Oh, don't be a spoilsport,' Tristan whined, pulling back a tapestry to reveal a shortcut that would have us in the Great Hall in no time. 'Let me enjoy the illusion for a little while!'

The Great Hall was filled with the same level of start of term chatter as last night when we arrived a few minutes later, and breakfast was in full swing. Whereas we had been confined to our own house tables for the feast, breakfast was a much more informal affair and we were allowed to sit where we chose. Other students were busy gossiping in various groups, catching up with friends from different houses that they hadn't seen yesterday. The heads of houses were already working their way up the length of the hall, handing out timetables, so it wasn't long before Professor Longbottom reached us as we took a seat at the empty end of the Hufflepuff table.

'So, Clariss, what subjects are you continuing with this year?' he asked, trying to juggle a stack of blank timetables, his wand, and a sheaf of parchment bearing what I assumed was our OWL results.

'I want to do Divination, Ancient Runes, Charms, Defence Against the Dark Arts, and Transfiguration, Professor.'

'Yes, well, let me see... whoops!' As he tried to shuffle his parchments round, his wand slid out of his hand, and was narrowly caught by Tristan before it could do any damage. 'Ah, thank you Mr Bowman, sorry folks. Yes, here we go, Clariss Flint,' he finally found his list and scanned it. 'That's all fine. Outstanding in Divination and Ancient Runes. Excellent work.'

He handed me a filled timetable and moved on to Lily and Conor. I glanced down to see that I had double Charms first thing this morning, followed by divination and Ancient Runes later in the day. Scanning it for my free periods, I saw I had one after break, and one before and after lunch. Not bad for a Monday. Evidently, Murray was thinking along the same lines as he peered over my arm.

'Not a bad day you've got,' he commented. 'Though could do without the Divination crap.'

'Oi!' I said pretending to be affronted. 'It's not crap! When have you got frees?'

'After break, and the two after lunch.'

'Not bad,' I told him. He, like me, was doing NEWT level Charms, so we would have the first lesson together.

As I spread Marmite on my toast, I listened to the boy's conversation about Quidditch, and when Murray would call tryouts. It allowed my mind to wander freely, since due to the fact that I was not a Quidditch player, my input in the conversation would not be required. I thought back to what had happened here last night. I was certain that it wasn't a figment of my overtired imagination; everything had seemed so real to me, just like the Great Hall now. I wondered what had caused it, and I almost hoped, out of curiosity, that something like it might happen again.

Soon, it was time for us to be going to our first lessons, and I accompanied Olivia, Tristan and Murray to Charms. The boys were still in full swing about Quidditch, and Murray was describing some Keeper moves he had seen in matches over the summer. He was leaping about ardently, sometimes only just missing passersby. We arrived outside Professor Flitwick's room with ten minutes to spare, and so waited in the corridor for the bell to ring.

'Watch it!' I snapped angrily, as one of Murray's rather enthusiastic moves nearly caught me in the face, and I recoiled from him, clanging into the suit of armour behind me. I cursed as my bag was flung from my shoulder and fell behind the cackling knight.

'Shut it, you,' I said angrily, slamming it's visor down as I ducked behind it's back to retrieve my bag. As I began to stand up, however, my head bounced oddly off apparent thin air. I straightened and stared at the spot, waving my hand across it slowly, but try as I might, I could not touch a particular brick that faced the knight's back.

'That's weird,' I said as I tried harder to make my hand connect with the stone, but the more I tried, the further my hand was repelled away from it. It was like trying to force two magnets together. 'Something's hidden behind here.'

Olivia peeped over my shoulder to see what I was doing. 'Where?'

'Here!' I said, pointing at the brick. 'Look, I can't get my hand to touch it.' My eyes focused on the mysterious place, and as I pulled out my wand, Olivia recoiled slightly.

'Oh no, Clariss don't!' she said anxiously. 'You don't know what's behind there; it could be something really dangerous!'

I made a non committal noise and shrugged my shoulder, but at the word 'dangerous', Murray and Tristan's faces appeared around the other side of the suit of armour.

'What's dangerous?' Murray asked, a mischievous glint in his eye.

'Whatever could be hidden behind here,' I told them, and showed them how my hand was being repelled from the wall. 'I want to know what it is.'

'Please, Clariss,' Olivia pleaded. 'Remember, curiosity killed the cat.'

'Yes, but the cat didn't have a wand,' I told her, slightly irritated by her caution. This opportunity was far too good to miss; I wanted to know what was behind that brick. Olivia had a habit of quoting her Muggle warning about cats at me, but I never really paid attention. After all, what did the saying mean?

'Oh, lighten up, Smith,' Tristan said, evidently sharing my annoyance and curiosity. 'I doubt it's anything dangerous; this is a _school!_'

'Chamber of Secrets a myth to you, then?' she snapped.

'No, but that's gone now,' he told her. 'Anyway, there's never been any rumours about some great dirty chimera or something hidden behind a wall in the Charms corridor, has there?'

Olivia was silent, but a look of disapproving worry crept across her face. She wouldn't be able to stop us from having a go at the wall, and she knew it.

'Get on with it, Clariss!' Murray said eagerly, and I briefly forgot the disagreement with Olivia and pointed my wand at the wall.

'_Revelio!' _I said confidently. Momentarily, the brick disappeared to reveal a shallow hole in the wall where something gold glinted in the light.

If anything could spur us on, it was the lure of treasure. Both Murray and Tristan tried to scramble closer, their progress impeded by the rather solid and unmoving metal statue. Even Olivia leaned back in to see what had happened.

'There's something there!'

'Try _finite incentatem_,' Tristan said. 'It might stop that protective enchantment.'

I tried the spell he suggested, but, rather disappointingly, nothing happened. I reached out my hand to see if it had indeed stopped the spell that the prevented me from touching the place. It had. My fingers brushed solid brick, and I let out a squeak of excitement as I realised that I was one step closer to discovering what was concealed behind.

'_Revelio!'_ I tapped the brick with my wand, and, this time, when it vanished, I plunged my hand in. The spell shattered, the image of the brick disappeared to reveal the shallow hole where it had once been. Sheltering in it's strange cave, the treasure lay silently.

'What is it?' Tristan asked as I pulled it out and held it flat in my palm. They scurried round to me for a better look, and Olivia leaned in closer.

I stared down at the object in my hand. It was a bracelet. A bracelet of gold linked Snidgets with red rubies for eyes. It was obviously very old as it was covered in a great layer of dust, and when I blew it off, I could see that the gold had tarnished and that several of the rubies were chipped in places. One was missing all together.

'Oh.' The boys appeared crestfallen as their treasure hoard had merely tuned out to be an old and dusty ladies trinket, but I kept hold of it. Strangely, I felt a unexplainable pull to the object, and I did not want to throw the apparently worthless thing away. I brushed most of the dust off, and put it carefully in my pocket.

'Why're you keeping that old thing?' Tristan asked disdainfully. 'It's just a bit of junk.'

I shrugged. I had no idea why, but I did not have the heart to throw the thing away. I was saved from having to give an explanation, however, by Professor Flitwick, who stuck his head around the door at that moment and beckoned us into his classroom. Placing my hand to my side, I checked that the bracelet was still there before entering the room. I would look at it properly later.


	4. Chapter 4

_**This chapter gave me a lot of bother! I hope you enjoy, and there's a little quote from Shakespeare's sonnet number 43 in there somewhere. Please review!**_

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I didn't particularly want to keep the bracelet in my pocket all day; I wasn't the most careful of students and I was slightly afraid that it would get damaged. However, when the bell rang at the end of double Charms, I didn't fancy the walk up four flights of stairs and then back down again, only to go back up to Gryffindor Tower once break was over, so I accompanied Tristan and Murray outside to meet the rest of our friends.

'Good lesson?' Lily asked when we reached her, Conor and Ceres standing in the shelter of one of the cloisters.

'Yeah was all right,' Murray replied nonchalantly. 'Clariss found a bracelet.'

'A bracelet?' Lily asked, her eyes darting towards me. I took it out of my pocket and held it up so the others could see it.

'Yeah,' I said. 'It was hidden in the wall outside the classroom door, behind that suit of armour.'

'Why was it there?' Ceres asked as she peered at the bracelet as it lay in my palm.

'Haven't got a clue,' I replied. This was something that was on my mind as well. Why _would_ someone have hidden it there?

'You best hope it's nothing dangerous,' she said as she backed off, letting Conor get a closer look.

'Well I've been carrying it round in my pocket all morning,' I said. 'If it was going to kill me, it would have done so by now.'

'But there still could be some sort of spell on it that takes time to work,' Ceres said. 'Or something that happens if you do a certain thing, like my mum told me about a book that if you were reading it, but you were supposed to be doing something else, it would snap shut and bite your nose.'

'Merlin, you sound like Olivia,' I said, slightly disgruntled at her fussing. 'But I suppose you're right.'

'Perhaps you should take it to Professor Beauchamp,' Lily reasoned. 'Just to make sure.' Professor Beauchamp was our Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor. If there was any spells hidden, he would surely find them.

'That's a good idea,' Conor said. 'And then, if there is nothing wrong with it, it could turn out to be really valuable. You could sell it and get loads of money.'

'Well if that's the case, I think I should get a cut of the cash,' Murray said with a grin.

I looked at him quizzically. 'Oh yeah? How'd you work that one out?'

'Well, I was the one who pushed you and made your bag fall behind that statue,' he explained. 'So technically, I'm the one who found it.'

Lily and Ceres snorted with laughter at his answer, but I was unswayed by his attempts to con me out of any money.

'Hell no,' I said. 'If there's any gold involved, I'm keeping it for myself. If I'm feeling generous I might buy you all a bar of chocolate to share, but that's as far as it goes.'

'Worth a try,' he said, shrugging. 'I could do with a few more Galleons.'

'A bet, perhaps?' asked Tristan slyly. 'On the outcome of the game between the Montrose Magpies and the Wimbourne Wasps?'

Murray's face broke into a mischievous grin. I knew that he couldn't resist a flutter, and when it was coupled with Quidditch, the temptation was trebled. In no time at all, Murray, Tristan and Conor were arguing animatedly about whether the Magpie's Chasers could out-fly those of the Wasps, leaving my mind to wander freely back to my strange find.

I held the bracelet up to the light to examine it closer, and saw that not only was the gold tarnished, but it was rather worn, and several of the bird's wings had been bent slightly. I suspected that this would detract from any value it had, but I was not really interested in selling it. For some reason that I could not quite fathom, I felt a strange pull of affection towards the thing. I did not tell my friends this; they would merely scoff and make fun of me for being so attached to a little bracelet.

Soon, the bell rang to bring us inside again, and while Conor, Tristan and Ceres went off to Arithmancy, Murray, Lily and I went up to our common room to enjoy our first free period of the year. I knew that after having listened to Professor Flitwick's lecture about this year's workload, the warnings Ceres had given this morning and last night were, sadly, going to be true. He had already given us a fair amount of work to do, but Murray and I had decided that we would put it off until that evening so we could truly appreciate our free hour.

The common room was quiet, there was only a handful of seventh years present apart from ourselves (it was with slight disappointment that I saw that Hero van Millen was not among them). Leaving the other two lounging in the chairs by the window, I went up to my dormitory to deposit the bracelet. I had Defence Against the Dark Arts tomorrow afternoon, so until then, I would keep it safely in my trunk.

I took it out of my pocket and looked at it again; working it carefully around my fingers and marvelling at the way the rubies glinted as they caught the light. I didn't want to think that it possessed any harmful power, and part of me didn't think that it was likely to do any damage, seeing that I _had_ carried it around for a couple of hours and fiddled with it a fair bit. But Ceres's words of caution prevented me from actually putting the thing on, however much a little voice in my mind nagged me; my curiosity did have limits.

As I sat down on my bed, I wondered who it had belonged to and why it had been hidden like that; behind a suit of armour, and concealed by protective enchantments. The bracelet itself was fairly old, so the person must have been at Hogwarts some time ago, either as a student or a teacher. Perhaps Professor Beauchamp would be able to tell me more about its age. It was a strange thing to hide away, why didn't the person take it with them when they left? Or perhaps they never left. Perhaps it had belonged to someone who had died here. Perhaps it was hidden as part of a secret...

I shook my head. My fanciful thoughts were running away with me. I stood up and moved to the end of my bed where my trunk stood open, revealing the untidy mess inside. I rummaged around for a while looking for something to keep the bracelet in so that it would not get damaged. I soon came across an old scarf with a large burn mark in it (a mark of one of Tristan's experimental Charms in our fourth year) that I had never thrown out. I wrapped the bracelet in it gently and placed it back inside.

Stifling a yawn, I stood up and went back downstairs to find Lily talking to a small group of seventh years, including her brother, while Murray flicked through a magazine called _Quidditch Monthly_.

'Hey, Clariss,' Albus greeted me cheerfully as I took a seat. 'You look tired. Sixth year getting to you already?'

'Something like that,' I told him with a wry smile. 'Thank goodness for these free periods.'

'They won't stay free for long,' one of Albus's friends, a friendly looking girl with tawny hair said. 'They'll be piling on the work soon.'

'Clariss, these are my friends, Tabitha Chambers,' he indicated the girl who had spoken, 'and Will Kelley.' A boy with a mess of blond hair and deep brown eyes waved at me from where he was slumped next to Tabitha. I smiled back at the pair of them.

'What lesson have you just had, Clariss?' Tabitha asked me.

'Charms,' I replied. 'It wasn't too bad, though these non-verbal spells sound a bit of a challenge.'

I recalled the sinking feeling I had felt at the mention of casting spells without the use of sound. There were still some spells I struggled with at the best of times, and the new 'no voice' rule was not going to help matters.

'Don't worry,' Will said. 'They get easier once you get the hang of them. I think everyone struggles at first.'

'What other subjects are you doing?' Tabitha asked.

'Ancient Runes, Transfiguration, Defence Against the Dark Arts and Divination.'

'I was always hopeless at Divination,' Will said. 'Could never See anything. That and Transfiguration.'

'We all know you were hopeless at that!' Albus laughed. 'Who was it who had to Un-Transfigure your hair yesterday at the station?

Will grimaced and I laughed along with the others.

'Well it's not just me,' Will said defensively. 'Tabby's rubbish too.'

'Hey! Leave me out of it. Plus,' Tabitha added, 'if you knew I was bad, why did you ask me for help first?'

'You were the first one I saw,' he said. 'I didn't want to go round with bright green dreadlocks for longer than I had to.'

'Why did you have them in the first place?' I asked between giggles, an image of him with fluorescent hair in my mind.

'Had an argument with my brother,' he explained, 'and the bugger wouldn't change it back. Neither would my parents; said it would teach me a lesson.

I laughed along with the others at Will's sour face, but I got the impression that he was someone that didn't stay grumpy for long. I yawned widely as my lack of sleep crept back on me, and turned away from the conversation, my mind groggy. I stared into the cold grate that had been freshly swept and a stack of wood neatly arranged within, ready for the evening, imagining the soothing warmth that would radiate from it. Before I knew it, I was asleep.

That night, I dreamed I was walking down a long corridor in the school beneath. It was daytime, but no light shone in from the windows. The sky beyond the glass was grey and dark, casting a shadow over the lands below. My hands were clasped in front of me, and glinting on my right wrist was a wrought bracelets of linked Snidgets. I was walking slowly, as if to a funeral March and I felt an overwhelming melancholy sorrow take over me.

Eventually, I stopped at one of the windows and looked over the grassy lawns towards the grey mountains beyond the school walls.

'_How would thy shadow's form form happy show_,' I whispered to the landscape, '_To the clear day with thy much clearer light.'_

I began to hear footsteps coming up behind me, but I did not turn round to see who they belonged to.

'I am deeply sorry,' a deep male voice said softly. 'I can imagine your pain.'

'Thank you,' I replied, wishing he would leave me alone; I was not in the mood for chatter.

'I am to go to the West Country after we are finished here,' he told me.

It was then that I turned round to him, but though I could see his dark robes and high white collar clearly, his face and features were a blur. I squinted, trying to get a better look at him and to distinguish who he was, but to no avail....

Suddenly, the world lurched in a whirl of colour and noise, and for a brief moment when the whirlwind ceased, I found myself staring instead, at a tall man with dark hair and a haughty look upon his face. His dark, endless eyes were boring into mine, and I reeled backwards, by breath caught in my chest. But it was only a brief clam, for the lurching soon began again. I reached out to him, the golden birds on my wrists glinting in the torchlight....

I awoke with a gasp, the dark room seemed still to be spinning, even though I could see nothing, and there was a slight ringing in my ears. As my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, I held out my arms, where only seconds before in my dream the bracelet had been. As I stared at them I wondered if the dream had just been a figment of my sleeping imagination, or had I just experienced a tiny portion of the life of the girl whom it had belonged to?

I looked uneasily towards the end of my bed where I knew my trunk lay. Was the bracelet beginning to work its magic?

_Don't be so silly,_ I thought, scolding myself. _It was just a dream. _

I turned over and snuggled deeper into my blankets, my eyelids drooping with sleep once again. It was just a silly dream, after all; I had been thinking about the thing for most of the day so it was only natural that it should feature in my dreams. Nevertheless, I resolved to take it to Professor Beauchamp so he could examine it the next day.

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_**Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it.**_


	5. Chapter 5

The next day, I left my friends outside at the end of our lunch break while I went to see Professor Beauchamp. I was ten minutes early for his lesson, and he looked rather surprised as I knocked on his door.

'Clariss! What are you doing here?' he said as he turned from his desk where he had been sorting parchments. 'The lesson doesn't start for another ten minutes.'

'I know sir, I'm sorry for interrupting,' I said as I entered the room and slung my bag on the table nearest the desk. 'I was wondering if you could look over something for me.'

I had decided last night that I didn't want to tell the exact truth to Professor Beauchamp. I was rather attached to the little trinket and didn't want to risk it getting confiscated if he thought that finding it in a wall outside the Charms classroom meant that it actually belonged to the school. I had lay in bed that morning and developed a little story.

'Look over something?' he repeated.

'Yes.' I drew the bracelet out of my pocket and held it up. 'It's this. My great-aunt sent it to me as a present this morning, and, well, she's known not to be all that careful in her purchases. It could have any mixture of strange jinxes on it.'

He held out his hand for it, and I gave it to him. He eyed the tarnished metal and bent wings sceptically.

'She's also rather blind,' I added hastily.

Professor Beauchamp peered at it intently for a while, and then turned and put it down on his desk.

'Very well. I'll have a look at it tonight and send it back to you when I'm done.'

He was as good as his word; two days later I was eating my breakfast when a second year Slytherin boy came up to me with a small packet and a note. The note said that the bracelet had passed all the tests he carried out on it, and that I should thank my aunt for sending me a nice, safe bracelet.

I felt myself relax slightly; it was only a bracelet, which meant that my dream was just a dream, nothing more. It was completely normal to have dreams about things that happened during the day, I told myself, feeling slightly silly for getting so carried away.

A week passed, and to my relief, I didn't have any other strange incidents happen to me. My sixth year was progressing smoothly, though it wasn't without its difficulties. As Ceres had warned, our free periods weren't turning out to be comfortable and relaxing, but were spent either in the library or the common room pouring over books and parchment as we struggled to cope with the huge amounts of work our professors were setting us. It was annoying that despite the fact I was doing half as many subjects as last year, I seemed to have double the workload. Among that was practicing the non-verbal spells that were being introduced into our lessons. I was finding these incredibly difficult and hadn't yet managed to pull off a single one. I had begun to try and practice at any available moment, which caused some of my friend's great amusement.

'Clariss, you look like you're trying to lay an egg,' Tristan said to me at breakfast on the second Tuesday of the term.

'Tristan!' I sighed in frustration, lowering my wand and turning away from the salt cellar I was trying to wordlessly levitate to glare at him. 'I swear I almost had it then.'

He and Murray snorted with laughter, and I felt my face redden. 'You can't talk, Murray. Have you pulled off a non-verbal yet?'

That silenced him. Murray was the only one out of our friends, beside me, who hadn't managed to perform a spell without words yet.

'Don't worry about it, Clariss,' Lily's voice soothed from my left. 'We're only a week into the term! It's gonna take time, remember what Will said? You're bound to struggle at first.'

'Yeah, but you can do them,' I replied darkly, stabbing at the remaining piece of sausage on my plate with rather more vigour than was necessary.

'Only one,' she reminded me. 'And I only managed that on Saturday. Don't worry about it, it'll come. At least you're trying.'

'I suppose so,' I said, my anger fizzling away. 'Thank goodness I've got Divination first to take my mind off those horrible spells. I'll see you later.'

Divination was turning out, once again, to be my favourite. It wasn't in any way taxing or trying like the other subjects, but the cynical half of my brain whispered that it might not be long. The new Professor was a gentle and ethereal woman, tall and willowy in stature with silvery grey hair and large blue eyes. The first time we met in class, I got the distinct impression that we had met before, but was not quite sure where. She was like someone encountered in early childhood that I only half remembered.

I arrived underneath the trapdoor in the North Tower with two minutes to spare before the bell rang, and saw that most of the class was already gathered there. Our class had reduced by about a third over the summer, but my Ravenclaw friends, Clarabelle and Regan, the same girls I had met on my first train journey to Hogwarts, still took the subject with me. I saw them standing with the rest of the class, and before I had the chance to hurry over and say hello, the silvery ladder descended from the trap door and the class began to climb up.

Throughout my six years at Hogwarts I had seen several teachers come and go, and it was always interesting to see how they decorated their classrooms and offices to their personal tastes. Professor Sye was no different to the others who had come. Gone were the spangled silks that Professor Patil had hung from every wall and draped over every surface, giving the place the feel of a gypsy's caravan. In their place were enchanting paintings of the sun, moon, stars, and ocean that Professor Sye had told them she painted herself. The room was lightly perfumed with the scent of sandalwood and the blue curtains over the windows cast a mystical half light over everything. It was a very calming room to be in.

'Good morning, class,' Professor Sye said in her ethereal voice as she stepped from the shadowy corner of the room. 'We're going to do something slightly different because today's lesson will be a practical.'

I exchanged looks with Clarabelle and Regan as we sat down at a small circular table. Our lessons so far had consisted mainly of note taking and question answering so far.

'We have spent the past week looking at spirits and beings in their different forms, not just the everyday ghost you can converse with at breakfast, but those who linger unseen and unheard,' she began. 'We can learn much from these beings about both past and future. To be able to contact these spirits, a certain frame of mind has to be used, and today I hope that some of you will be able to achieve it. We will be leaving the classroom and heading to a balcony in the Astronomy Tower.'

'The haunted one?' I blurted out. The entire class turned to look me, and I recoiled in horror. Where had that come from? It was haunted, there was no doubt that I knew that, but I had not known so until I said it. I looked back at Professor Sye, expecting her to be angry with my interruption, but instead she was smiling.

'Yes, it is haunted,' she said. 'Haunted by a spirit that you cannot see or hear with everyday senses. Hogwarts is privy to several of them, but this one I believe will be the easiest one for some of you to contact. Please open your books to chapter two and read the passages concerning frame of mind.'

I hurried to take my book out of my bag, aware that Professor Sye was still looking at me, a curious expression on her face. As I flipped through the pages, I wondered how I had known that the room was haunted. Nobody ever went onto that balcony, or into the room that lead to it, but I had never given it a second thought before, nor the fact that it might contain some sort of ghost. And why had I sounded so apprehensive, almost _fearful_ about it?

I skimmed the paragraphs, not really taking them in and after ten minutes or so, Professor Sye told us to close our books and follow her, bringing only our wands. We followed her down the silvery ladder and along several corridors until we reached the Astronomy Tower. Practical Astronomy lessons were usually held on the roof of the tower, but there were several rooms on the way up that were used as classrooms to study theory, and it was to one of these that Professor Sye led us. As far back as I could remember, the room had never been used, but until this day I had not thought why. I, along with many other students, presumably, had just though it an old classroom. It was indeed old. The door had evidently not been opened in a long time, as it gave a terrible screeching noise as it was forced open. The room it concealed had been used as a sort of storage area come dumping ground. There were old, broken desks and chairs huddled together, along with an unused blackboard, old fashioned telescopes, piles of mouldering books and several rusty cauldrons. Everything was covered in a thick blanket of dust, including the floor, and our muffled footsteps sent great plumes of dust into the air.

The double door to the small, curved balcony was opposite the one we had just entered by. The view from it was beautiful; from it you looked over the smooth, sloping lawns and down to the sparkling lake. However, there was an unpleasant, musty smell about the place and the feel of the room was altogether strange; it felt as if we had just entered the home of a dying person. Our voices were hushed and our movements minimal.

'Here,' Professor Sye addressed the class in her usual hushed tones, 'if you can feel it, is a curious and powerful phenomenon. I want you to all close your eyes and concentrate on what you feel, like the book describes. Let your senses guide you to other emotions that may linger here. Seek them out, but do not try too hard; relaxation is essential. In a way, the emotions must come to you as well. Close your eyes and breathe deeply, sense the atmosphere.'

I glanced around at the class and then seeing that others had followed Professor Sye's instructions, I snapped my eyes quickly shut. Standing here like this made me feel very silly; this wasn't the type of Divination I was used to, or even sure I could master. I was used to dealing with interpretations from books, signs and sums; this was about as far away from that as you could get. Here, I had nothing to go on except a feeling that I had to look for, yet not look for, and that I might or might not actually experience. It all seemed a bit unlikely to me.

But then I remembered the strange vision I had experienced at the welcome feast. Was Professor Sye asking for something like that? But I had no idea where that had come from; I had merely stood up to find myself in that odd place. It may have just been a by-product of tiredness and over-excitement. I certainly hadn't used any level of concentration to make it appear.

As I stood there, trying to relax into the quiet mood of the room, I felt something begin to creep into my mind. A strange tingling feeling was running up and down my spine, and I felt myself being drawn towards the doors that opened onto the balcony. It was if some invisible force was pulling me closer, willing me nearer...

I took a step towards it, unable to stop myself. Dimly, I was aware of my classmates opening their eyes and turning to look at me, watching my progress across the room, but I didn't look at them. I kept moving towards the doors.

And then it hit me.


	6. Chapter 6

**_Woo! Another chapter done. Writing this is so much fun, I hope people are enjoying reading it as much as I am writing it. You can tell me in a review if you are or not. I love concrit as well, however harsh. I'm not afraid of critisism, in fact, it's really appreciated._**

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I gasped as a powerful surge of emotions coursed through me and my eyes flew open. I felt a great pang of shock that hit me like a furious bolt of lightning and left me reeling in its wake. There wasn't time to recover as the feeling gave way to one of utter horror laced with a great yearning sadness that tore at my heart and rendered me speechless as tears formed in my eyes. Slowly, the feelings subsided, and I was left shaking and gasping for breath, the tears of my own shock glistening on my face. I realised that I must have screamed or cried out, as the rest of the class were gathered round me, a mixture of concern and fear on their faces. Behind them, Professor Sye was regarding me with a strange expression that I couldn't quite read; it seemed like a mixture of elation and triumph. But in an instant it was gone, replaced by an impassive look.

'You felt it?' She whispered in her mysterious voice. 'It can come as quite a shock the first time you experience something like that. Here, take some chocolate; I came prepared, just in case.'

She handed me a couple of squares of chocolate and I took a bite, wanting to be rid of the horrible shaking feeling. As I ate, my limbs stopped quaking and my breathing returned to normal. However, it did nothing to clear my thoughts.

'Can you explain to us what it felt like?' Professor Sye asked, gesturing to the rest of the class, who, now that I seemed to have returned more or less to normal, were looking less fearful.

Steadying myself, I began to recall what I had experienced. 'It felt like someone who had experienced, or was experiencing, a huge tragedy,' I said. 'Something that caused her a lot of pain. Something that upset her. Well, not upset her it tore her heart.'

'It was a woman, then?' Professor Sye asked. Up until then I wasn't aware that I had given the feeling a gender, but now that I thought about it, it did make sense. There was something feminine about those feelings.

'Yes,' I replied. 'It felt like a woman, somehow.'

'You could be right,' she said. 'It only seems to be women who experience it. Could you tell anything else from it? Was she perhaps on the throes of death or contemplating suicide? Did she throw herself from the balcony?'

'No,' I said. 'No, she didn't kill herself. She saw something from the window, I'm certain of that.'

I was certain that I was right, I just didn't know why. It was like how you instinctively know that comfort is good and pain is bad.

'Do you know what it was? What caused her to feel all that?'

I shook my head. I had no idea what the woman had seen that had broken her heart so terribly, and after that experience, I wasn't sure I wanted to know. As I looked at my professor, I saw a strange look in her eye. It wasn't the triumphant look she wore a few minutes ago, it was different. I couldn't say for definite, but I got the idea that Professor Sye already knew the answers to the questions she was asking me. As I looked, the vision I had had on the Welcome Feast crept into my mind. I had a funny feeling that she might know about that as well.

She said nothing more on the subject, but led us back to the North Tower where she set us notes to copy from our textbooks. I, however, had a lot of difficulty concentrating on the task I was supposed to be doing. Most of the words made no sense on the page, and the ones that did only haunted me. Words like _ghost_, _apparition_, _spirit,_ and _vision_ leaped out at me and plagued my mind, swirling my thoughts around in a confused mess. I knew who I needed to talk to, and so when the bell rung to signal break I was the first through the trapdoor. Lily had Care of Magical Creatures, so I made my way outside to wait for her. Just as I was descending the marble steps to the Entrance Hall, the doors swung open and a dozen dripping wet students came pouring in, Lily among them. I hadn't noticed, but it was pouring with rain outside and meant we would spend break time in the Common Room.

'Hey, Clariss! Fancy a shower?' Lily said shaking her head like a dog and sending drops of water all over me.

'Don't do that!' I shrieked, shrinking away from her. 'I had one this morning thanks! Look, I need to talk to you.'

'What's the matter?' she asked, looking at me. 'What's happened, you look really pale!'

'Shh!' I hissed, checking to see if anyone was listening. Thankfully, our greeting had caused us to fall behind from the main group, who were already half way up the stairs. 'Something happened in Divination just now. I sort of had a funny experience.'

'Like the one at the feast?' she asked, completely serious now.

'Sort of. I don't know. It was really strange, Professor Sye took us to this disused balcony in the Astronomy Tower and told us that some kind of ghost haunted it and that she wanted us to try and experience it.'

'And you did?'

'Yeah,' I said. 'But I was the only one who did.'

'What was it like?' she said. I looked at her in suspicion, but was surprised to see that she looked genuinely interested.

'It was like a shock at first,' I said, 'and then this terrible sadness and longing. It was strange. It felt like it was a woman who had seen something from the balcony that broke her heart.'

'How do you know that?' she asked.

'I don't know. I just felt it, it was like an instinct. It was scary,' I confessed. 'I think I'm going mad.'

'Why?' Lily looked surprised at my declaration. 'Clariss, you were in a Divination lesson! Things like that are supposed to happen. It's what Professor what's-her-name wanted you all to experience. You should be proud that you were the only one that did. People have been Seeing things for centuries, just because you have doesn't mean you're bonkers.'

I had to admit, what Lily was saying made sense. There were plenty of normal explanations for what had happened. It was also a mark of our friendship that Lily had said this. Ordinarily, she would have been the first person to say that Seers were _definitely_ mad.

'Do you think this and the vision I had last week are connected?'

'No,' she said after a moment's thought. 'I don't think they are. What you experienced today was like what your Professor said. It was probably some sort of ghost. That other thing was like a vision, wasn't it? I mean, you actually saw things, but, after all, you were full and tired, it could have been a product of that.'

'Yeah, I suppose,' I agreed. It definitely made sense to think of it that way, and it was comforting to see that there were other explanations. I cheered slightly, feeling as if a dead weight had lifted out of the pit of my stomach.

I hadn't been aware that we had been walking as we were talking, but now that my mood had lifted I saw that we were in fact on the third floor, nearing the entrance to the Charms corridor. There, I saw something that lifted my mood even more. A lone, dark figure was loitering by the archway. I knew that figure and that stance; I had admired it for years. It belonged to Hero van Millen, Albus Potter's friend, and the guy I had harboured a not-so-secret crush on since my fourth year.

'I swear Hero looks even more gorgeous when he's surly,' I whispered to Lily, nodding at the corner we had just passed. Lily turned to look.

'I don't see him,' she said. 'Was he actually there, or are you just making a general comment?'

I turned my head to look again. She was right, he had gone.

'He was there,' I told her. 'Must have gone down the Charms corridor.'

'Shame,' she said, mischievous twinkle in her eye. 'He _is_ better looking when he's brooding on something.'

'Lily!' I exclaimed. 'You've got a boyfriend! What would Conor say?'

'No harm in looking,' she said cheekily.

'You leave him alone,' I warned her, trying unsuccessfully to look serious,. 'Hhe's mine.'

The topic of the dashing Hero carried us all the way up to our Common Room, where we were bombarded by a high-spirited Tristan and a disgruntled Murray, who had apparently been gambling again. All thoughts of paranormal experiences and visions forgotten, we went to lounge in front of the fire, teasing Murray for yet another loss.


	7. Chapter 7

'You know what, even though I chose Ryan at the tryouts, I'm still a little unsure. Perhaps I should have gone with Hodden.'

Beside me, Murray scratched out a name for the fifth time, muttering to himself. Apparently it was some Beater- related thing, but whatever it was, it was distracting me from the Charms homework we were supposed to be doing.

'Murray,' I hissed for the fifth time, 'will you be quiet? I'm trying to concentrate!'

'Clariss, I've got drastic Quidditch problems, I can't hush it up,' he said, and then added to himself, 'Perhaps I should give Ryan a chance against Hufflepuff, but if he plays like he did in our last practice then we've got about as much chance of winning as a Flobberworm has of outrunning a Bowtruckle.'

I put my quill down and glared at him. He was really trying my patience.

'What?' he asked as he looked at me. 'It's a serious problem!'

'Not for the library! I'm trying to do this essay. Where's yours?' I added, looking around for his essay and notes. 'We were supposed to be doing this together.'

'In my bag,' he replied, turning back to his parchment. 'I gave up on it when you started muttering to yourself. That's always a sign it's hard. I'll do it at the weekend; I've got more important things to think about. Do you think I should drop Ryan?'

'Who's Ryan?' I thought hard to put a face to the name, but I had no luck.

'Fifth year. Quite tall. Great mess of blonde hair,' he said. 'I think I'll give him another chance,' he added to himself. Evidently he didn't want my opinion anymore. 'After all, he _did_ out-fly Hodden in tryouts.'

'Right, well,' I said, putting down my quill and sighing. 'I'm not going to get anything done with you muttering away.'

'Occupational hazard,' he replied, 'being friends with a Quidditch Captain.'

I grunted in agreement as I packed away the things from my essay; quills, ink, notes, and the essay itself. My life had been full of essays for the past few weeks. I was like a constant cycle: essays, lessons, eating, sleeping, and then back to essays again. Occasionally there was a weekend thrown in, but that was mostly devoted to homework as well. Everything was boring, even in Divination we were confined to the classroom, making notes on various states of mind required for trances and the like. I'd had no more strange experiences, but everything was so monotonous now that I almost wished that something _would_ happen.

'See you,' I said to Murray, and walked off towards the door. A boy was holding it open for me.

'Thanks,' I grunted, not really looking at him, my mind was engaged elsewhere.

'It was Clariss, wasn't it?'

I looked up at the boy who had spoken. I stared at him for a moment, feeling incredibly silly that I had no idea who he was when he apparently knew me. Then it clicked.

'Oh, hi!' I gushed eventually and he smiled, guessing what I had just done. 'You're Will, aren't you? Albus's friend? The one with the green dreads.'

'Yup, that's me,' he said. 'But without the dreads. How are the non-verbal spells going?'

'Getting there,' I said as we began to walk down the corridor towards the staircase. 'Pulled a few off, but always after a lot of practice.'

'They say practice makes perfect,' he said. 'It gets easier, I promise. Unlike memorising moon charts, that never gets easier.'

'You do Astronomy?' I asked.

He nodded. 'Wish I hadn't sometimes. Anyway, enough of that dull stuff. First Quidditch game of the season soon!'

I pulled a face, remembering the conversation I'd just had with Murray.

'Not a fan?' he asked with a laugh, seeing my face.

'It's not my favourite pastime,' I told him.

'That's a surprise, considering the sister you've got.'

He was right; my sister, Aeron, was the Slytherin Quidditch Captain. My other sister, Amentia, had also played for her house a few times while she was at school.

'I guess I'm just odd like that. I get it from my Mum, she hates it. But my Uncle Percival had a big influence on Aeron,' I said.

'Percival?' he asked with a frown. 'Not Percival Flint? The one who writes for _Which Broomstick?_'

I nodded in confirmation.

'You are an oddball!' he said, though he seemed rather impressed. 'You'll be watching though?' he asked. 'It's always good to support the team even if you don't actually like it.'

'Oh, I'll have to be there,' I said. 'Not only would my sister be angry but my friend, Murray, is Gryffindor Captain. He'd _murder_ me if I missed it.'

'The bloke you were with just now?' he asked and I nodded. 'It should be a good match. Both Gryffindor and Hufflepuff have lost star players. It'll be interesting to see who replaces them.'

'It will,' I said, but privately I disagreed. Listening to Murray rambling on about who to include in his team was definitely not interesting in the slightest.

'Anyway,' Will said, slowing down at the entrance to a small corridor. 'I've got to go down here. Hand something in. I'll see you around.'

'Yeah, see you,' I said as he disappeared down the passage. He was a nice guy, I thought. Easy to talk to and genuine. He had nice eyes as well, sort of a deep brown colour. It was a shame he hadn't been with Hero, though, I thought as I ducked behind a tapestry depicting some Creaothceann players. Behind it was a set of spiral staircases that would get me to Gryffindor Tower twice as fast as the main staircase.

As I climbed I let my mind wander to Hero Van Millen. I'd liked him for years now, though my crush was probably not as strong as it had been in previous years when he just had to enter a room and I'd go the colour of a tomato, but I still thought he was the best looking guy in the school. Despite his good looks, he was a nice person, or so I'd heard, having hardly ever spoken to him before. He'd never really had any girlfriends or craved attention to feed his ego, in fact I could only remember him having one girlfriend, a girl called Florence Astrova, a Gryffindor in the year above. I remembered glaring at her every time I saw her for the three months they went out with each other and was incredibly happy when I heard they'd broken up.

As I climbed in tighter and tighter circles, my head began to spin with the circles and my ears began to ring. That was odd, I never usually got this dizzy walking up this staircase. I shook my head to clear it, and finally the corridor it lead to came into sight. I hitched my skirts a little higher so that I wouldn't trip over them.

'Ara?'

As I reached the top step I heard someone call my name from the end of the passage, and I raised my candle a little higher so I could see the speaker. It was Professor Marcher, the witch who taught the girls household spellwork, and behind her was a short girl with dark hair that I had not seen before.

'Ara, this is Annie Prankerd,' Professor Marcher said, pushing the girl forward a little. 'She has just been Sorted into Gryffindor. Would you show her the way to the Tower? I have some business I need to attend to.'

'Of course, Professor Marcher,' I said, curtsying.

Professor Marcher swept out of the corridor, her robes billowing behind her, leave the new girl and I alone. I smiled hesitantly, I'd never been comfortable with strangers, but this girl seemed friendly. She had a pretty face and a wide smile that lit up her light blue eyes. She had fairly tanned skin and her hair was brown, but looked like it had been bleached by the sun in places and she had rosy cheeks that were scattered with freckles. She looked like she spent a lot of time out of doors.

'I'm Ara Grey,' I said, breaking the silence, aware that the girl was taking me in just as much as I was her. 'Your name was Annie?'

'Yes,' the girl said with another smile. 'Annie Prankerd.'

'Follow me then, Annie. I shall escort you to Gryffindor Tower.'

We walked on in silence for a bit, along corridors and passages until we reached the main staircase, where Annie's eyes widened to the size of dinner platters as she took in the carved wood and marble and large, ornate paintings and their frames.

'Very grand place this, isn't it?' she asked me. She had a strange accent that I couldn't place, though her voice was soft and clear. 'There's nothing this grand at home, though the castle must have been once. But that was destroyed in the war years ago and is naught but a crumbling wreck now. Is everything this grand?'

'Yes, I suppose so,' I replied. Coming from the background I did, I had not really considered the grandeur of Hogwarts. 'I had not thought on it before, but I suppose it is.'

'I was ever so excited when Father said that I could finally come,' Annie told me as we began to climb the stairs. 'I wanted to start at the beginning of the year when everyone else would have been, but I was needed at home for the harvest. I've known I was a witch for years; Ganis, the old warlock who lived by the river told me when I was little, but I didn't know there was a school for magic until I received a letter when I was eleven. Mother and Father said I could not attend though.'

'How so?' I asked. She was a very talkative girl and had such a lively way of expressing herself that I felt myself warming to her.

'They said I was still needed at home,' she said. 'I am the oldest girl and my brothers and sisters were still young you see, and Mother could not have coped on her own. How long have you been here?'

'Since I was eleven,' I said, and I laughed as her eyes widened. 'Though I am one of few. Many are like you; they start when their families can spare them, or they have found husbands. Others leave because their families need them at home or they get married.'

'That's a long time,' Annie said. 'I bet you know loads of magic. I don't think I could be here that long; I'd miss my family too much. Don't you miss yours?'

I shook my head. 'It's only me and my father now,' I told her, 'and I don't miss him very much. You get used to it after a while.'

Annie looked as if she wanted to pursue the subject further, but something, perhaps the etiquette she'd been taught, held her back.

'I cannot wait to begin lessons,' she said instead as we ascended to the sixth floor. 'I do hope I don't find myself too behind.'

'I am sure you will not,' I told her reassuringly. 'We take our lessons with a variety of ages and abilities. Plenty of students start their education late so you certainly are not the only beginner.'

I saw her look a little relieved and I could tell that this was something that had been worrying her, despite her outward show of excitement and ease.

'Well, here we are,' I said, stopping in front of a painting of a pious looking nun. 'This is the entrance to the Gryffindor Common Room. You have to speak a password to gain entry.'

As I spoke these words, a great dizziness came over me, and I put out a hand to steady myself as the room slid out of focus.

As suddenly as it had come, the dizziness stopped, and everything came back into view. Breathing hard, I looked down at myself. The elaborate black gown I had been wearing only seconds ago had vanished, replaced with my normal plain robes. The painting of the nun had also gone, and in her stead was the Fat Lady, and she was looking at me quizzically. I didn't blame her, I was trembling like an Aspen leaf and I must have looked terrified.

'Are you all right, my dear?' the Fat Lady was saying.

'I- I'm fine,' I stammered, taking a few tentative steps towards her.

'You were just standing there, staring at the wall, and when I asked for the password you didn't say anything.'

'I'm fine,' I repeated. 'I'm okay?'

'Are you sure, dear?' she asked concernedly. 'You're as white as a sheet, should I send for someone?'

'No, no. I'm fine. I was just thinking, that's all. Can you let me in?'

'Are you absolutely certain you don't want me to send for the matron?'

'Yes! I'm perfectly fine! _Maleficent! _Can you just let me in, please?'

With one last doubting look, she swung forward to admit me, and I climbed, still trembling, through the portrait hole.

'Clariss!'

I turned around, still slightly dazed, to where someone was calling my name. It was Lily; she was sat on the sofas by the fire with Conor, Tristan and Murray. I had hoped just to go straight to my dormitory to collapse on my bed, but now Lily had noticed me, I couldn't ignore her. I wandered over to them, acutely aware that I was still trembling. I hoped they wouldn't notice. I don't think I could find an excuse in this state.

'Where did you go?' Murray asked as I reached the sofa. I was feeling slightly unsteady so I gripped the back of it, my knuckles turning white. 'I left only a couple of minutes after you did but I couldn't see you anywhere.'

'Oh,' I said. 'I – I was talking to someone.'

'Who?' Lily asked and I saw her raise an eyebrow as she looked me over.

'That Will guy,' I said vaguely. I really wanted to go upstairs. 'Your brother's friend.'

'Must have been some conversation,' Tristan snorted. 'Murray came back ages ago.'

'Yeah,' I said. 'Look, I'm really tired, I'm going to bed. Night.'

Before they could say anything else, I had turned away from them and made my way dazedly to the staircases that led to the dormitories. I was still trembling head to foot, and must have looked a state, judging by the looks they were giving me. As I walked away I heard Murray mutter, 'Is she all right?' I ignored him.

Five minutes later I was lying on my bed, staring at the overhead curtain. What had happened to me? My heart was still racing and even though I was wrapped up in my covers, I was shivering and shivering as if I would never be warm again.

* * *

_**Thanks for reading, please leave a review :D**_


	8. Chapter 8

'Ara Grey,' Lily said, as if she was trying the name on her tongue. 'No, I've never heard that name before.'

It was hours later, and we were sat huddled on the covers of my bed, whispering together in the darkness, the gentle snores of the others sounding around us.

Lily had found me not long after I had climbed shaking into my bed. Ripping back the covers, she had opened her mouth as if to demand what on Earth had gone on downstairs and why I did not stay to sit with her and the boys like I usually did. But she had stopped short when she saw my face and how I was quivering uncontrollably, and her anger turned at once into concern. I wished it hadn't. She had asked me what was the matter and if she should get some help, in the same worried voice that the Fat Lady had used. I hesitated before I answered, wondering if I should tell her what I had really experienced and remembering her scepticism when it came to things like this, but then I thought of how she had reacted before, when I told her what happened in that Divination lesson and somehow I knew she'd accept it, as strange as it seemed.

She had listened with rapt attention as I told her everything that had happened, how I had been climbing the stairs behind the tapestry and the dizziness I had felt, and then suddenly, how I found myself in that other place, that other _time. _After I had finished telling my outlandish tale, we sat there in silence for a while, the curtains pulled around my bed and listened as Ceres, Olivia, and Amelia came up the stairs to get ready for bed. At long last, she had broken the silence.

'That's some evening you've had,' she said, and I laughed. It felt as if a great weight had been lifted from my shoulders, a weight whose presence I hadn't acknowledged or known I was carrying, but had in fact been pressing me to the ground since I had come back to myself in front of the Fat Lady's portrait. Subconsciously, I had known that Lily would believe me and not scorn me or call me stupid, and vaguely, I wondered why I had ever doubted that she would.

'I know,' I murmured in agreement. 'It came as a bit of a shock, I can tell you.'

I had then asked her if she had ever heard of someone with that name before, which brought us to our present conversation.

'No, I hadn't heard of her, either,' I said. 'Though I suppose if she'd ever done something she'd be listed by her married name. They all got married back then, didn't they?'

'That's true,' Lily said. 'Are you thinking of looking her up, then?'

'Can't hurt, can it?' I said, pulling the blanket tighter around myself. 'I want to know who she was, and I might find something that'll tell me why I'm reliving bits of her life.'

'How're you going to do that if you don't know what her married name was?'

'She might have been something at school,' I replied. 'You know, like a Prefect, or exceptional at Charms or something. Did they have Prefects back then?' I added as an afterthought.

'No idea,' Lily replied. 'Can't hurt to look though, like you said.' We were both silent for a moment, wrapped up in our own thoughts, before Lily spoke again, 'Do you think you should tell your Divination teacher? Professor Whatshername?'

'Professor Sye? Hmm, I dunno,' I said. I hadn't really thought about telling anyone else, and I didn't particularly want to, even though this sort of thing was supposed to be her area of expertise. It felt like it was something private and personal, something I wanted to share only with someone close to me, and I didn't feel like Professor Sye was that.

'Just, you don't really know what's happening,' Lily said, shifting uncomfortably on the bottom of my bed. 'Anything could go wrong, if you've never experienced flashbacks like this before, and you can't control what happens in them.'

'Mmm.' I thought that Lily did have a point, but I was reluctant to let anyone else in on my secret.

'Just think about it, okay?' Lily said, and I felt the springs rise as she got off the bed. 'Night, Clariss.'

'Night.' She pulled the hangings back around my bed, and I turned onto my side, listening to her footsteps crossing the room and the rustle of fabric as she got into bed. Then, all was silent.

That weekend, I rose early, something that was incredibly rare for me. When I didn't have lessons, I usually woke no earlier than ten. But today I had something I wanted to do. Since my flashback in the week, I had been thinking non-stop about the girl, Ara Grey. Who had she been? When had she lived? And most particularly, _why_ had I slipped back in time to her life? I didn't expect to find the exact answer to that question, but I might find a book or two on something along the lines of what I had experienced. I was less interested in the other girl, Annie, though I had given her some thought. It was mainly because I had become Ara and seen and felt everything from her point of view that I was desperate to learn more about her, and this was why I was headed to the Library and the Trophy Room today.

As I dressed and scribbled a note to Lily to explain where I'd gone (she'd be incredibly surprised and probably slightly worried if she woke up to find my bed empty), I felt a sort of thrill of excitement and butterflies in my stomach. It almost felt like a sense of foreboding. I decided I would head to the Trophy Room first; the Library wasn't open until nine at the weekends, and that gave me plenty of time to search the large room. It was always unlocked, and I had specifically checked yesterday what time students were allowed to be out in the morning. I had no problem there; it was seven as I left the common room through the portrait hole (I saw the Fat Lady's eyes following me as I went down the stairs), and students were allowed out at six.

I had only been to the Trophy Room once before, in my first year, just out of curiosity. It wasn't something that had really interested me since as I had won no prizes to be displayed there, and I had forgotten just how long it was and how high the shelves stretched towards the vaulted ceiling. I stared aghast at the size of it all; centuries upon centuries of prizes and awards, Prefect lists and honours, and I had no idea where to start. I didn't know what period in time the flashback had taken place; judging by the gowns they had worn and the way they had spoken it could have been any time from the early nineteenth century to the 1200s, though I suspected that it wasn't quite that far back.

The newest trophies seemed to be those closest to the door, and the dates grew older as I walked in. I suspected that the was designed so that it expanded magically whenever someone came to put a new trophy as there seemed to be no empty space. Everything was very quiet, and my footsteps echoed loudly around the room as I walked. Pale morning sunlight streamed in from the high windows on the left, illuminating the tiny dust particles that were floating lazily around, and catching on the shiny surfaces of the cups and shields on the higher shelves, making them wink and sparkle in the light. The place had a faint smell of silver polish mingled with dust and the scent of the oak shelves. It was rather comforting, I thought, and I breathed deeply, steadying my quivering stomach. I had to remind myself not to pin all my hopes on finding something; she could have been a completely unremarkable student and had never done anything to warrant merit or recognition, and I must not expect to find anything this morning, but it was hard not to feel the anticipation.

As I walked further into the room, I passed the huge silver shield that commemorated Lily's dad defeating Voldemort in the Great Hall. It was beautifully engraved, and it hung proudly on the wall above the shelves, glinting in the morning sun. Next to it was a memorial shield, listing all those who had died that day. I scanned the names, and was surprised to see just how many there were. I had always known people had died; there were whispers that several ghosts that floated around the school had died in the battle, but I hadn't imagined it would be so many. Their age was listed next to them, and I noticed that many of them were students, barely older than I was now. One of them was Amelia's uncle, and I saw a few other names that I recognised, too, including a Fred Weasley. Judging by his age, he must have been one of Lily's Uncle Ron's brothers. I couldn't imagine facing what they had, or being as brave as they were and to lay down my life like that. I was just a student, just a child, and so were they.

I shuddered at the thought of their sacrifice and wondered if I would have been able to do the same. Thanks to them, I would never have to. I stared at the memorial for a few moments, trying to pour out my silent thanks to them before moving on. As I walked, I glanced from left to right to look at the masses of awards that littered the shelves. I saw my mother's name on a list of Prefects for the year 1997. My father's and Uncle Percival's weren't there; I knew that they had caused too much trouble at school to be considered for Prefects, but I did find my Uncle's name on a Hufflepuff Quidditch shield. I pulled myself away from searching for any more familiar names; I had come here for a reason, and I moved resolutely on. When I thought I had moved far enough down, I looked at a shield to find the date. 1813. Yes, this would be a good place to start.

Meticulously, I began to check every shield, every medal and trophy, every list of Prefects, Head Boys and Girls and magical merit award for a mention of someone called Ara. I jumped every time I saw a name beginning with A, but it was never her. I searched further and further down the room, going from the 1810s to the 1800s and then into the eighteenth century. I searched all the way to the 1400s, but there was nothing. Ara Grey had never won any kind of award or had a position of merit when she was at school, and I began to feel the sinking feeling of disappointment. Angrily, I whirled around, I was not angry that my search yielded nothing, but that I had allowed myself so much hope at finding an answer when I knew that there was a very real possibility that I would find nothing. I could have kept searching back into the fifteenth century, but something told me that I wouldn't find anything. Ara Grey had been at school later than that.

My stomach suddenly gave a loud rumble, and so I abandoned my search for some breakfast. I would head to the library afterwards. I had hoped that I might find some mention of her name and a rough idea of when she had been at school so that I'd be able to do more research on her life in the library, but it hadn't quite planned out like that. I would just have to do it the hard way. I checked my watch. It was half past nine. I'd been at this for two hours and had found nothing. With a sigh, I left the room and began to climb down the marble staircase to the Great Hall.

'Find anything?' Lily whispered as I slipped onto the bench next to her in the Great Hall.

'No,' I sighed as I loaded my plate with bacon and eggs. 'There was nothing.'

'Well, you didn't expect to find anything, really, did you?' Lily said, going back to her sausages, but I could tell from the tone of her voice was slightly disappointed, just like I was. I smiled.

'No. And I've still got the library,' I told her. 'I'm going to head there after breakfast.'

'Oh, please don't!' Lily whined.

'Why?' I asked, slightly bemused.

'Because Conor and the other boys are going down to the Quidditch pitch,' she said. 'I won't have anyone to talk to. And anyway, I'd quite like to come, you know, and I don't fancy the library this early in the morning. I need some fresh air.'

'Fine,' I'll go after lunch,' I said with a sigh. In truth, I was rather impatient to be finding something. 'But if it's fresh air you want, why don't you go down to watch the guys?'

Lily made a face. 'Apparently they're going with Ollie Fletwock and some other Ravenclaws, so Ceres automatically leaped at the chance. I don't fancy listening to her prattle on about Ollie for three hours.'

I laughed. 'Sounds like someone I remember from last year...'

'Oi!' she exclaimed. 'I did not prattle on about Conor.'

'Not for three hours together, I'll admit,' I said, 'but boy did you go on. I thought it would finally be over when you just got on with it and snogged him, but no, after that, it got worse! All that crap about trying to find out if he really liked you, or if he just considered you a bit of a snog after a Quidditch match.'

'Clariss!' Lily exclaimed. 'I was not that bad!'

'Oh, you were,' I assured her, thoroughly enjoying seeing Lily flustered like this. 'I've changed my mind; I'm going to the library so you can get a taste of your own medicine with Ceres. Ha!'

'You're so mean!' She squeaked, and reached over to hit me playfully on the arm. 'You wouldn't dare to do that; I could choose to remark on all the times you've gone all goo-goo eyed over Hero, or that time in third year with Andrew Faulkner!'

'You wouldn't!' I said. Andrew had briefly been my boyfriend for a few weeks when I was fourteen and I didn't particularly want to remember how mushy and soft I'd been over him. 'Okay, okay, we're even. I won't mention Conor-agonies, and I'll stay with you. You can't mention anything with Andrew.'

'Deal,' Lily said, sticking out her hand. I shook it. 'Come on.'

I pushed my empty plate away from me and stood up, Lily following suit, and together we walked towards the Entrance Hall and our common room.

'What do you want to do?' I asked as we scrambled through the portrait hole when we reached Gryffindor Tower.

'Don't mind,' Lily said. 'Chess? Snap? I don't particularly feel like homework. Murray was playing with a pack of cards earlier, he's probably left them here, somewhere.'

She walked off towards the armchairs by the fire, and I threw myself onto the sofa, oblivious to the group of students sat at the tables in the corner until one of them called my name.

'Clariss! Lily!' I looked up over the back of the sofa. It was Albus and a group of his friends. 'Come over and join us!'

Lily grinned and made her way over to them as I got up off the sofa and followed. There were four of them sitting around the table; Albus, his friend, Will, the girl, Tabitha, and, my stomach lurched pleasantly as I noticed, Hero Van Millen. They'd replaced the usual wooden chairs with comfy-looking armchairs, like the ones grouped around the fireplace. I frowned.

'I thought you couldn't Transfigure the furniture in here?' I asked as I walked over to them, remembering the time I had tried to practice Vanishing spells on the legs of the table where Lily was working.

'You can't,' said Albus. 'We conjured them; the old ones are over there.' He pointed to the corner where, sure enough, several wooden chairs were stacked neatly against the wall.

'We thought it'd be much more comfy,' Hero said in a silky voice that sent shivers down my spine. 'Here, have a seat.'

I had to admire his spellwork as he flicked his wand, causing two more comfy-chairs to appear out of thin air. He didn't utter a single syllable. I hadn't managed to pull off a single non-verbal conjuring spell yet, and was having trouble with the consistency of the ones I could manage. _Some people have all the luck, _I thought ruefully.

Lily plonked herself down unceremoniously in the chair next to Albus, leaving, whether intentionally or now, the seat next to Hero free. Unlike Lily, I settled myself in what I hoped was a classy and dignified manner, aware Hero's eyes was on me.

'You're looking more alive, Clariss,' Tabitha said to me from across the table. 'You fell asleep in your free period the last time I saw you.'

'Oh yeah,' I said, remembering with a tinge of embarrassment. It had been the first day of term, and I had been up most of the night occupied with the strange vision I'd had at the welcome feast. The first glimpse I'd had of the world of Ara Grey.

'What else are free periods for, if not sleeping?' Hero said, winking at me. My throat went dry as I tried to think of a response that didn't sound stupid, but my mind was blank. Oh, come on! How hard was it to spit out a couple of words?

'Yeah, that's right,' I managed to say finally. He was smiling at me, and I had to look away, scared that he might see something in my eyes that would betray the fact I liked him perhaps too much.

'Your last name is Flint, right?' Hero was asking me.

'Yeah,' I said. I was really saying that too much.

'Your sister was in my sister's year, I think,' he said. 'Amentia, right?'

'That's right,' I said. 'She was in Ravenclaw.'

'Hera was a Gryffindor, like us,' he said. 'They had Herbology together, I think. How did Amentia do in her NEWTs?'

'Really well,' I replied, relieved that I was managing to produce coherent sentences. 'She wants to be a Healer eventually, so she had to get top marks.'

'Wow,' he said. 'Has she started the training programme this year?'

'No, next. She's travelling for a year first,' I told him, gaining in confidence as my words unfolded like a normal human's did. 'She's in Greece at the moment. My parents are going to stay with her over Christmas.'

'Are you going?'

'No,' I replied. 'Her flat is too small for more than three people. Plus, Aeron is staying to study for her NEWTs and I'm staying with her.'

'Ah, NEWTs,' Hero said with a sigh. 'I'll be staying over Christmas for them as well, so you won't be alone.'

I noticed that he didn't look too upset about the coincidence.

'So, how are you finding sixth year?' he asked. 'Wanting to throw yourself in the lake yet?'

'Not yet, and I'm praying it doesn't get that bad! Non-verbal spells are a bit trying at the moment, but I'm enjoying Divination. That sort of cancels the bad stuff out.'

'Divination?' he said. 'You're not one of those types, are you?'

'What do you mean, one of _those types?_' I asked, pretending to be offended.

'You know,' he said, grinning. 'One of those 'see the future' people. All episodes of the second sight and collapsing everywhere because they think they've seen some sort of omen in their breakfast cereal.'

'Hey! It's not like that!' I protested.

'Professor Patil was,' he said.

'Well, okay, but _I'm _not like that,' I said. 'It's more about calculating and reading body language and being intuitive and stuff. That's what I like doing.'

'You've still not convinced me,' he said, poking his tongue out. 'I much prefer the past.'

'The past?' I said with a small jerk. Was I just being paranoid, or was there a certain knowing look in his eye? I stared at him. No, I was just being silly, there was nothing but an innocent smile on his face, nothing to suggest that he knew anything about my visions to the past.

'Oh yes. History and all that.'

'History as in History of Magic?'

He nodded.

'No way!' I exclaimed. 'That was so boring. I dropped that as soon as I could.'

'It's not boring, it's fascinating,' he said with a grin. 'It's just the teacher that's boring. Give the subject a different teacher and it would be so much better.'

A few months ago, I would have flatly disagreed with this point, saying it wasn't just the teacher, it was the subject itself that was the problem. However, I'd regressed into the past itself, and lived it through another person's eyes. It didn't seem as boring as it used to, or at least parts of it didn't. Of course, Lily would be the only person to know of my experiences. I was going to have to carry on my vein of disdain, and I was going to make the most of it.

'But _something_ has to make history teachers boring in the first place,' I said in what I hoped was flirtatiously argumentative manner. 'It's got to be the subject; that's the thing that links them together. I mean, have you read any of those textbooks? Historians are all boring! A change of teacher won't make the subject more interesting.'

For a moment, I was terrified, and my smile faltered slightly. Had I gone too far? But he broke into peals of laughter, and there was a cheeky look in his eye that I found particularly attractive.

'Fine,' he said, his eyes twinkling. 'Let's agree to disagree. And I'm sure you'll get the hang of those spells soon, Clariss. You seem like an intelligent girl. Flawed in your dislike of history, but that apparently can't be helped.'

He held out his hand to shake mine, and I took it, my heart leaping into my throat. His grip was firm and his hand felt smooth and warm and solid against mine. For a fleeting second, I didn't want to let go, and I felt a slight shiver of pleasure run up my spine. He dropped my hand and smiled at me.

'Oi, Hero!' Will called across the table where he was lounging, feet up on the top. 'You can't keep Clariss all to yourself. Let the poor girl have some space to breathe!'

I giggled and glanced across at Hero, who leaned back in his chair, grinning at Will. I thought I saw a shadow of red flush up on his face for a moment, but then it was gone. Was I just seeing things, or could it perhaps mean what I hoped it did? The conversation that Will had been having with Tabby, Lily and Albus swelled out to include Hero and myself, but I didn't find myself joining in much. I tried to keep my eyes from Hero, but occasionally they betrayed me and flicked back to take him in, and I could have sworn that a couple of times, our eyes met for a fraction of a second.

All too soon, it seemed, the boys and Ceres traipsed back in, the boys rather windswept and red-cheeked and Ceres practically bouncing rather than walking, her face alive with excitement. She rushed over to us, grinning broadly and, to my reluctance, dragged us away from Hero and his friends and over to a corner by the fire.

'Guess what?' she gushed, beaming at Lily and I.

'Ollie asked you out?' Lily guessed. She was smiling at Ceres' enthusiasm; apparently, small doses of Ceres' love life she could stand.

'Not quite, but we're going to Hogsmeade together in a couple of weeks, and he's going to sit with me at breakfast tomorrow!'

'Nice one,' I smiled. 'Did you ask him, then?' My eyes darted back to the table we'd just left. Hero was still sat there, but he was engrossed in a conversation with his friends. I felt slightly disappointed.

'Well, sort of,' Ceres said. 'We'd been talking for ages about all kinds of things, and we were really getting on, so I mentioned Hogsmeade and the date sort of set itself up! Great, isn't it?'

Ceres launched into a description of what seemed like every word that had been exchanged between her and Ollie. I glanced sideways at Lily. Her eyes were beginning to glaze over, so I nudged her. She gave a start and glared at me.

'Ceres,' she said, interrupting her mid-flow. 'Clariss and I have to go to the library. We've got a massive Ancient Runes essay due in for Monday.'

I tried to look like this wasn't new information to me, and prayed that she wouldn't go asking Murray or Conor if they had completed their essays. She seemed convinced, though, and slightly crestfallen. I felt a pang of guilt as I saw her smile ruefully.

'You can tell us everything when we get back,' I said, aware that Lily was looking daggers at me. 'We've got to get this out of the way first, though.'

'Okay then,' she said, perking up slightly. 'Have fun with your essay.'

We said goodbye, and Lily steered me forcibly out of the portrait hole.


	9. Chapter 9

'Aww, why did you have to go and say that?' Lily hissed at me when we were firmly outside the Gryffindor Common Room. 'I don't want to have to listen to Ceres go on about Ollie!'

'She looked so upset when we said we were off,' I said, shrugging my shoulders. I wouldn't be pressured into feeling bad about my promise to Ceres. 'Anyway, I listened to you go on about Conor, you listened to me about Andrew in third year, we should listen to Ceres. It's what friends do. And she's so excited about it. It's not like your ears are going to burn off or anything.'

'You never know,' Lily said with a wink. 'But I suppose you're right. We should apologise to her when we get back.'

'Yeah,' I agreed. 'So, are we off to the library, then?'

'Ooh, yeah!' Lily exclaimed, her eyes widening. 'I just said that as a way to get out of it, but that's a good idea! We can research Ara!'

'Shh!' I hissed, casting about myself in case someone was near.

'Oh, don't worry about it, Clariss,' Lily said, tugging me down the corridor. 'Even if anyone did hear, they wouldn't have a clue what I was on about.'

'I suppose,' I agreed.

We ducked behind a tapestry, taking a shortcut that would take us to the library. With a start, I realised that this was the same passageway in which I'd had my flashback the other day. I shivered and quickened my pace.

'So,' Lily said as we entered the library. 'Where do you feel we should start?'

'Dunno,' I whispered, heading over to the history section. The library was nearly deserted; the only occupants were the elderly, stooped librarian who frowned at us as we entered, and three students; two Hufflepuff girls and a Slytherin seventh-year, who were bent over piles of books and parchment at the desks at the end of the aisles. 'I suppose we should start here.'

I paused in the middle of an aisle I had selected at random and peered up at the masses of dusty tomes that extended up the shelf nearly to the ceiling. Suddenly I felt the vastness of what I was trying to do; there was thousands of book here, just in this one aisle, and I was just searching for one name. How on Earth was I ever going to find anything? It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack; I could search for hours and not find a thing. For a moment, I wanted to just turn around and leave.

I walked along the aisle, looking at the titles, sliding books off the shelf at random, flipping them open, and then putting them back again. Suddenly, Lily appeared at my elbow, two books clutched to her chest. One, I recognised as one of our old textbooks, a much battered and abused copy of _A History of Magic_.

'Thought we should start with the familiar ones,' she said, showing me the books. The other one she had was _Hogwarts: A History_.

'Not bad,' I said. 'I'll start with something more specific.' I slid a green, leather bound copy of _Notable Events of the Seventeenth Century: Revised Edition_ from the shelf.

'Why seventeenth century?' Lily asked, looking at the book I'd selected.

'I don't know,' I said. 'It just seemed like the right sort of time frame just now.'

Lily shrugged her shoulders and turned back towards the table at the end of our aisle and let her books tumble out of her arms. I pulled out the seat next to her and flipped my book open and scanned the contents page.

'So,' Lily said as she opened _A History of Magic_, 'you reckon seventeenth century is the place to start?'

'It might be an idea,' I said. 'I honestly don't know why, but I think I've got a good feeling about it. Like when I picked out that book it felt _right_.'

'Perhaps it's your Inner Eye talking,' Lily said grinning mischievously.

'Oh, shut up, you,' I said, giving her a withering look. 'It felt like back in that Divination lesson when I was telling Professor Sye about what I felt. I just knew the person was a woman, and now I just feel like we're looking for someone in the seventeenth century.'

'How come you didn't feel like that when you were looking at all the stuff in the Trophy Room?'

'I don't know.' This was something that had just popped into my head, too. 'Perhaps it was because her name wasn't actually there. I mean, I knew when I'd gone too far, didn't I? Perhaps she's mentioned in one of these books.'

I prickled at the thought. Contained in this book might be the answer, or at least a reference to who Ara Grey had been. She felt incredibly close.

'So, what were you and Hero talking about earlier? He looked like he couldn't get enough of you.'

'What?' My head jumped up in startled surprise. Was she being sarcastic? I looked at her, she was grinning broadly at me. 'It wasn't like that, we were just talking.'

'Suit yourself,' she said with a smirk. 'You can't pretend he didn't blush when Will caught him up for keeping you to himself. '

I stared at the contents page of my book, trying not to smile too much. So I hadn't imagined the flush of colour on his face. I suddenly felt very happy indeed.

'Yes, well I did see it, as a matter of fact,' I said. 'But I'm sure it's nothing.'

'Oh, come on, Clariss,' Lily snorted. 'He kept on looking back at you when we were all talking, _and_ when we were talking to Ceres.'

I couldn't conceal my grin that time, and I felt it spreading widely across my face. The library truly was a beautiful place.

'You really think he was doing that?'

'I _know _he was. I kept watching you to see if you noticed, but you didn't seem to.' She was grinning broadly at me. 'I think he took a bit of a shine to you.'

'Let's just keep on with the research, shall we?' I said. My mind was singing, but I was feeling a flush creeping over my face, and, in truth, I didn't want to get my hopes up over what might turn out to be Lily over-interpreting things. 'What sort of things went on in the seventeenth century?'

'Goblin wars, mostly, it looks like,' Lily said, flipping through pages of her book. 'Oh, and the Statute of Secrecy in 1689 or something.'

'Oh yeah. It was first signed in 1689, but it didn't come into effect until 1692,' I said.

'Wow,' Lily said with a snort. 'Someone paid attention in History of Magic. Oh, here's something!'

'Where?' I leaned over to her, scanning the page she had her book open at in excitement.

'Says here that the inn in Hogsmeade was Headquarters in a couple of Goblin Rebellions. It could relate somehow to Hogwarts.'

'When did they happen?' I asked, my spirits falling; I'd hoped for a mention of Ara, at least.

'Hold on a second, ah, here it says there was some in the early part of the century, 1612 through to 1614, and another one in 1680. Ring any bells?' she asked with a laugh, only half joking.

'Hmm. Try the 1680 one. 1612 sounds too early.'

She began to flick through the pages of her book, and I turned my eyes back to mine and scanned the contents page. Finally, I found the reference and flipped to the section, near the back of the book.

'I've got something, look,' Lily said, giving me a nudge. '_In 1680, the Wizard's Council was beginning to seriously consider the Statute that had been proposed several years earlier,'_ she read. '_The increasing number of attacks, both Muggles on wizards and vice versa, prompted them to re-think their blanket rejection on 1675. Needless to say, the leader of one of the goblin clans at the time, Gudbug the Gross, was not happy about his clan's exclusion from the debates that raged, and tempers began to flare. A group of goblin rebels, including Gudbug, re-established their Headquarters in Hogsmeade that they'd used in the Goblin Rebellions nearly seventy years before. The Wizard's Council feared the intentions of the rebel goblins, and sent representatives, headed by one Waldric Eldon, to negotiate peacefully with them, but the goblins rejected their advancement, and a fight broke out. Four goblins were killed in the fight, along with a villager, Hubert Madder, who tried to intercede on behalf of the goblins, and many more were injured, including Eldon himself. The wounded were taken up to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where many recovered, thanks to the careful ministrations of the young matron, Miss Ara Grey.'_

We were both silent as the words sank in.

'It's her,' I said eventually. 'We've found her.'

I looked at Lily and we broke into identical broad grins.

'You were right, it was the seventeenth century,' she said. 'And she was a matron here.'

'Do you think she's the matron when you're her?' Lily asked.

'No,' I said thoughtfully. 'She's definitely a student. She wears the uniform. But all that guff about "the Wizard's Council sending representatives to negotiate peacefully with them",' I said with a snort. 'More like they sent a hit squad to take the rebel goblins out in the middle of the night.'

'How do you know that?' Lily asked.

'What do you mean?'

'Well, that's what the book goes on to say,' she explained. 'About how the goblins accused the Council of attacking them at the dead of night. Most of the residents of Hogsmeade agreed, apparently.'

'What?' I said with a start. 'I-I was just guessing!'

'Well, you're correct. The Council leaders got a right rollicking. The Chief got thrown off the Council altogether, it says here.'

'He didn't,' I said slowly. 'He just got demoted to Secretary...'

We stared at each other, open mouthed.

'It's like I've been there before,' I said quietly.

'You know, my mum always says that if you think you've been there before, you usually have,' Lily told me in an equally soft voice.

'You mean, as in reincarnation?' I asked. This was getting far too weird.

'It's a possibility,' Lily said. 'You're regressing back to her life, you can remember all these details of what happened in that goblin war, _and_ you knew when to look. It makes sense.'

'Makes sense that I was Ara Grey.'

'Well, nobody knows what happens after death, do they?' Lily said in a rational voice. The tone seemed strange considering what we were discussing. 'I mean, we know people can choose to be ghosts, but other than that, anything could happen to the soul.'

'I think I need to lie down,' I said, closing my book firmly and standing up.

'Do you want me to come with you?' Lily asked, a concerned look on her face as she half rose from her chair.

'No, I'll be okay.' I managed a smile. 'I just need to get my head around the possibility.'

'Okay,' Lily said, sitting back down as I turned to leave. 'I'll see you later.'

I walked slowly through the corridors back towards Gryffindor Tower. My mind was whirring, but I wasn't a shivering mess like I was when I'd had my first flashback. I was calm, collected, if a little startled by the idea of reincarnation. The more I thought about it, though, the more it actually made sense; the fact I was having flashbacks to Ara's life, how I knew all the details of the goblin wars Lily had found... The difficult part was trying to come to terms with the fact that I had once walked in the seventeenth century. That I'd had a family and friends and a life I had absolutely no knowledge of until now. It was a very strange feeling.

My head gave a sudden throb and I winced in pain. Perhaps it was too much, trying to get my head around being another person. It was giving me a headache. A ringing started in my ears and my head began to spin. I closed my eyes against the noise, and suddenly, I collided with someone.

'Oh!' I exclaimed, my eyes flying open as they flicked up to the figure. 'I am so sorry, Professor,' I added, curtsying hurriedly as I recognised the sweeping robes and towering figure of Professor Black.

'Not to worry, Miss Grey,' he said in a rich voice, reaching out to steady me as I stumbled forward. I stepped away from him quickly.

'You know my name?' I asked, not daring to look up into his face. For some reason, I found Professor Black somewhat intimidating, yet fascinating at the same time. I generally tried to avoid him, if I could, but if I did somehow manage to see him around the school, I could not help myself from looking at him. I was grateful that I did not have him for any of my lessons. I wasn't quite sure where my feelings stemmed from, but there was something about his confident manner, and the way his eyes seemed so _penetrating._ It could even have been the fact that he was so much younger than the other teachers, I guessed only five years older than my own eighteen years. He didn't look like a member of staff, but rather a student, just masquerading.

'Of course,' he said. 'I have a good head for names, and not much that goes on here escapes my notice.'

'Oh,' I said rather lamely. I made a curtsy again and began to walk away from him, not liking how he was making me feel so uncomfortable, but he was speaking again.

'I was on my way to the Herb storeroom, but it appears to have changed location since I was a student,' he said, and I was sure, even though I dared not look directly at his face, that he was smiling. 'Would you show me the way?'

There was no way in which I would ignore a direct request, especially not from a Professor, so I curtsied in a demure manner, and began to lead the way. I tried to walk quickly, so that he would be walking behind me, but he quickened his pace and fell into step at my side. I chanced a glance up at him. Close to, I could see that his robes, though simple, were of a very fine material, and very well cut. They were obviously expensive. I looked up at his face. His dark hair was wavy to his shoulders, and framed his face, accentuating his high cheekbones and solid jaw line. He was walking only inches away from me, and I could feel the breeze from his swinging arms on my hands.

'I believe your father is on the Wizard's Council,' he said after a while, turning to look down at me. I snapped my eyes away immediately, but I could have sworn I heard him chuckle, perhaps amused that he had caught me staring.

'Yes,' I replied.

'We have something in common, then,' he said. 'My father is also. Mufrid Black is his name.'

'I believe I have heard my father mention him,' I said diplomatically. It wouldn't do to repeat exactly what he had said about the man; it was not polite hearing.

We were silent for a few minutes, during which we descended a staircase onto the second floor. I did not attempt to speak to him.

'There is much talk of a new treaty,' he said, finally, breaking the silence between us. I looked up at him, trying to tell if he was provoking me. I did not involve myself in my father's business, even if he would have let me.

'I do not know, Professor,' I said sternly. 'My father does not discuss secret Council dealings with me.'

'I meant not to offend you,' he said with a laugh, which angered me more. 'Indeed, quite the opposite! I was merely suggesting there had been talk, outside the Council, about new legislation referring to new Muggle and wizard relations.'

He stopped and turned to face me, and I defiantly met his gaze, annoyed that he seemed to be teasing me.

'I should very much like to hear your opinions on the subject, Miss Grey,' he said. 'It seems to me like you would have some interesting ideas. However, I believe I can find my own way from here. I thank you.'

He bowed to me once, and strode up off the corridor, leaving me standing, gaping after him.

It was hard to describe the feeling of sliding from one time into another, I thought as I hurried back up to Gryffindor Tower. Or rather _thrust_ would have been a more accurate word, for abruptly and without choice I had found myself standing in that corridor, being steadied by strong, masculine hands. I had come back to myself in a deserted passageway on the second floor, and immediately began to hurry back to the Common Room, thinking about what I had just experienced. It was almost like walking through an invisible portal that separated the past from the present. When it happened, at the moment I passed through the invisible veil, I was blissfully unaware that anything had changed. That particular realisation, and it's possible significance, would hit me later, when I was back as Clariss Flint. But as I collided with Professor Black, I was no longer Clariss with all her memories and attachments. All that had been stripped from me. My thoughts were someone else's, my thoughts not my own, and as I moved, I lived each new experience for the first time.

I was not as shaken as I had been that first time when I had come back to myself outside the portrait of the Fat Lady, but I was still a bit shocked. The experience had come upon me without warning, and had left me reeling in its wake. The conversation I'd been having with Lily in the library came back to me.

_If you think you've been somewhere before, you usually have._

I shook the thought from my mind. It was too much to deal with now.

That night, the dream I'd had after I found the bracelet concealed in the wall returned. I woke with a gasp to find myself reaching forwards towards the end of my bed, as I had been reaching forward in my dream. The golden bracelet no longer glinted on my wrist, and there was no handsome, dark figure before me. I knew instantly who he was now. It was Professor Black, the man I'd run into as Ara yesterday. There was no mistaking it.

I knew there was no chance of being able to get back to sleep now, so I threw back the covers and slipped out of bed. I'd not spoken much after returning from the library yesterday, and to my great relief, Lily had not approached the subject we'd discussed. I dressed quickly, my teeth chattering, partly because of the cold, partly due to the strange excitement I was feeling. I rummaged around in my trunk for a moment, finally finding the scarf in which I'd carefully tucked the bracelet. I unfolded the material and let it fall into my hand.

It looked somewhat different to how I'd seen it in my dream, only a few minutes earlier. The colours were less vivid; the gold was paler, duller, and the rubies no longer glowed like the fire of a thousand suns. It looked like it was, old and tarnished. Somehow, the light weight of the metal in my palm calmed me, and I crossed to the window by my bed and looked out across the grounds.

According to my watch, it was only six o'clock, so the sun hadn't risen yet, but already the landscape as filled with pale light. There was a yellowy glow behind one of the distant grey mountains, indicating that dawn was on its way. The ground below was swathed in silvery mist, and I marvelled at how it clung to the grass, leaving the trees to poke up through. It was very beautiful in an eerie sort of way.

As I fingered the bracelet, I noticed something in the corner of my eye, something that looked like a smudge of one of the diamond sections of glass in the window. I leaned forward to get a closer look and saw that it was a series of scratches. Someone had carved their name into the glass in tiny, italic letters. I peered intently at it to see if I could decipher the name.

_Ara Grey._

I recoiled in shock, my heart fluttering weakly inside m chest. It couldn't be!

And yet, it was. Minute as though the lettering was, there was no mistaking it. Ara Grey had sat here once, exactly where I was sitting and carved her name into the window. She had slept in this very dormitory. Perhaps she had slept in my bed.

This was just too strange! I was experiencing flashbacks to her life. I had found what I was now sure was her bracelet concealed in a hole in a wall, and now I had found her name carved on a window next to my bed. It was tangible proof, actual evidence other than just a name in a book, that Ara Grey had really existed and had lived and gone to school at Hogwarts.

But what did all this mean? These things could not be down to chance; there had to be a reason for all of this. Could Lily be right? Could the reason actually be that once, a long time ago, I had been Ara Grey?


End file.
